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Avatar gender and personal space invasion anxiety level in desktop collaborative virtual environments

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Abstract

We report an investigation exploring the effect of avatar gender on the anxiety level caused by personal space (PS) invasion in desktop collaborative virtual environments (DCVE). We outline an experiment in which participants, of both genders, whose avatars’ PS were “invaded” by other avatars of either gender, reported their anxiety levels through the use of a post-experiment questionnaire. The data from the questionnaire are analysed and discussed. The results suggest that the combination of the gender of the invading avatar and the avatar being invaded has an influence on the PS invasion anxiety level and that the ranking of gender combination groups has a striking difference from those observed for PS invasion in physical environments. Results also show that the participants in general did not register high anxiety, contrary to what one might expect from personal space invasion in the physical world.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Ahmad Nasri and his students at the American University of Beirut in preparing the participants and the computer labs required for the experiment. Also, the authors are grateful to Dr. Janet Finlay and Mr. John Gray for stimulating and helpful discussions of earlier drafts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BIT Department, Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai Women’s College, Dubai, 16062, United Arab Emirates

    Nasser Nassiri

  2. ISLE Research Group, School of Computing, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK

    Norman Powell & David Moore

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  1. Nasser Nassiri
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  2. Norman Powell
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  3. David Moore
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Correspondence to Nasser Nassiri.

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Nassiri, N., Powell, N. & Moore, D. Avatar gender and personal space invasion anxiety level in desktop collaborative virtual environments. Virtual Reality 8, 107–117 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-004-0142-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-004-0142-0

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