Construction and effect of relationships with agents in a virtual reality environment

Abstract

Recent studies have been investigating behavior (of approach and avoidance) toward the interaction with agents in virtual reality. This paper aims to explore the cognitive construction of a complementary relationship with agents in virtual reality through a brief interaction in a virtual task. A sample of 53 adult participants with or attending higher education was studied, divided into a control group of 20, and two experimental groups, one of 20 and another of 13 participants. The experimental groups interacted with a virtual agent, one group knowing that it was a non-human character (NPC) that communicated verbally, and the second group being informed that it was an avatar controlled in real-time by another person. The results confirmed an effect of cognitive flexibility on the anthropomorphic and complementary perception of NPCs and the application of relational models toward NPCs. An effect of the nature of the agents (NPC vs. Avatar) in the application of relational models was mediated by the complementary anthropomorphic projection of the agents. The previous interaction with the virtual agent, perceived as an NPC, provided faster skin conductance responses with images of the NPC. These findings contribute to: (1) understanding the impact of cognitive flexibility, a neuropsychological construct, in the construction of projections and relationships with agents in virtual reality; (2) creation and use of virtual reality tools based on communication in a function-led approach; (3) critical view of social models, for the development of a scale that allows assessing anthropomorphism and complementarity in virtual reality.

Appendices

Appendix

Appendix A

2.1 Images used in the skin conductance evaluation task

Appendix B

3.1 Experimental procedure phases

	Control group	Experimental group with an NPC in VR	Experimental group with an NPC in VR as an avatar
Phase 1	Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Phase 2	–	Cooperative task with a VA
Phase 3	Task of visualizing images while measuring skin conductance
Phase 4	Social psychology assessment battery
Phase 5	Debriefing

Appendix C

4.1 Script used in the virtual reality task

Agent says: "Good morning, I'm Ana. Are you also from Lusófona?".

0.5 s after a window of 3 options appears:

"Yes, I am a Lusófona student";

"No, but I've been";

"No, I've never been";

0.5 s after reply:

Agent says, “Okay. So… we were asked to translate, format and work with images of a paper in Castilian. What part do you prefer to do?”.

0.5 s after a window of 3 options appears:

"Okay, I'll take care of formatting and image";

"Okay, I'll handle the translation";

"Okay, I'll take care of the formatting and image, but as you translate the text, you could format the text boxes";

0.5 s after reply:

Agent says: “Okay, I'll do the rest. But look… the paper has no title and as it is about recycling and health, I thought of calling it… recycling behaviors. Any ideas to improve this title?”.

0.5 s after the answer in the options window:

“Impact of recycling behaviors on health”;

“Behaviors of recycling and public health”;

“Public health: Recycling behaviors”;

0.5 s after reply:

Agent says: “Good idea! The paper will be excellent. It was a pleasure to work with you!”.

0.5 s after the answer in the options window:

"So do I.";

“It was also a pleasure from me”;

"Ok, everything is in order";

End of task, indicating the end of the task;