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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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