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Investigating Implicit Gender Bias and Embodiment of White Males in Virtual Reality with Full Body Visuomotor Synchrony

Published: 02 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Previous research has shown that when White people embody a black avatar in virtual reality (VR) with full body visuomotor synchrony, this can reduce their implicit racial bias. In this paper, we put men in female and male avatars in VR with full visuomotor synchrony using wearable trackers and investigated implicit gender bias and embodiment. We found that participants embodied in female avatars displayed significantly higher levels of implicit gender bias than those embodied in male avatars. The implicit gender bias actually increased after exposure to female embodiment in contrast to male embodiment. Results also showed that participants felt embodied in their avatars regardless of gender matching, demonstrating that wearable trackers can be used for a realistic sense of avatar embodiment in VR. We discuss the future implications of these findings for both VR scenarios and embodiment technologies.

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  1. Investigating Implicit Gender Bias and Embodiment of White Males in Virtual Reality with Full Body Visuomotor Synchrony

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2019
    9077 pages
    ISBN:9781450359702
    DOI:10.1145/3290605
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    Published: 02 May 2019

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    1. embodied avatars
    2. implicit association test
    3. implicit gender bias
    4. virtual reality

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    • (2024)What my bias meant for my embodiment: an investigation on virtual embodiment in desktop-based virtual realityFrontiers in Virtual Reality10.3389/frvir.2024.12515645Online publication date: 25-Mar-2024
    • (2024)Effects of Third-Person Locomotion Techniques on Sense of Embodiment in Virtual RealityProceedings of the International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3701571.3701598(72-81)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2024
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