Rabindra Ratan
Biographic Data
| ID | 134763 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rabindra Ratan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rabindra |
| FAMILY NAME | Ratan |
| SIGNATURE | RATAN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7611-8046 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 78 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
An Explication and Classroom Field Study of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab’s Expert (VHIL-E) LLM
89) used VHIL-E to query and understand the course materials and logged hallucinations, which were "egregiously wrong answers." Students then chose the single worst wrong answer over 8 weeks. They then compared the Base/RAG Hybrid-which prioritized the RAG but allowed ChatGPT to consult its general intelligence-to the RAG Constrained, which limited substantive information to the embedded index. Allowing VHIL-E access to GPT produced more than twi…
Openness to the Metaverse Workplace: Zoom Fatigue and Metaverse Information Seeking Mediate Gender Inequities
The metaverse—a network of three‐dimensional virtual worlds in which people can engage in everyday activities—could augment future workplaces given the widespread acceptance of remote work. While it is not fully conceptualized, many have experienced, observed, or learned about metaverse‐related technologies (e.g., online gaming and virtual reality), which will likely influence their openness to using the metaverse for professional purposes. In or…
Casa Renovations: Examining Social Responses to an Anthropomorphic Media Representative That Is Separate From the Core Technology Being Represented
To extend our understanding of CASA and account for changes in technological complexity and configuration, this research asks: Do increasing levels of social cues in a media representative that is separate from the core technology it represents lead to increased perceived anthropomorphism of the core technology? And does such perceived anthropomorphism predict positive treatment of the core technology? We conducted two complementary studies obser…
Focusing on Virtual Groups: A Method for Focus Group Interviews in Xr/Vr Group Settings
The art of Internet Research is always developing, while also firmly rooted in the theoretical frameworks of the past. As technologies have evolved over time, new ways of interacting have become pervasive, and with them, a need for a different means of analyzing such interactions. Through all of this change, internet researchers have discussed and developed effective methodologies to suit the needs of research. Significant work has been done on d…
Zoom Fatigue and Facial Dissatisfaction Relate to Virtual Meeting Engagement Differently in the U.S. and South Korean Contexts
Virtual meetings, facilitated through videoconferencing or virtual reality, have become a common form of workplace communication. Despite the advantages these meetings offer, enabling collaboration among workers in dispersed locations, the phenomenon of virtual meeting fatigue, commonly referred to as Zoom fatigue, has emerged as a significant concern. This study explores whether facial appearance dissatisfaction, a known contributor to Zoom fati…
Time matters in VR: Students benefit from longer VR class duration, but certain outcomes decline after 45 minutes, with large individual variance
Machine Learning(s) in gaming disorder through the user-avatar bond: A step towards conceptual and methodological clarity
In response to our study, the commentary by Infanti et al. (2024) raised critical points regarding (i) the conceptualization and utility of the user-avatar bond in addressing gaming disorder (GD) risk, and (ii) the optimization of supervised machine learning techniques applied to assess GD risk. To advance the scientific dialogue and progress in these areas, the present paper aims to: (i) enhance the clarity and understanding of the concepts of t…
Exploring how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group work
We investigate how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group work. Female participants worked with two male confederates. Voices were filtered according to four voice gender anonymity conditions: (1) All unmasked, (2) Male confederates masked, (3) Female participant masked, and (4) All masked. When only male confederates used masked voices (compared to all unmasked), female participants spoke for a lon…
An Avatar's worth in the metaverse workplace: Assessing predictors of avatar customization valuation
Virtual economies with 3D assets have been studied for decades, often in the context of entertainment, but the concept of the metaverse as a workplace platform has only recently begun to take hold. This research addresses a gap in our understanding of how the enhanced ability for impression management in the metaverse workplace may relate to worker well-being and equity. We explore how demographics and previous virtual meeting (VM) experiences re…
How Does Exposure to General and Sexual Harassment Relate to Female Gamers’ Coping Strategies and Mental Health
Female gamers are often exposed to not only general harassment but also sexual harassment during online multiplayer games. Although studies have investigated the effects of harassment and associated coping strategies on the mental health of females within the workplace, comparable studies have not been conducted within online gaming environments. This study surveyed adult female gamers to assess the relationship between female gamers’ exposure to…
Facial Appearance Dissatisfaction Explains Differences in Zoom Fatigue
Viewing self-video during videoconferences potentially causes negative self-focused attention that contributes to virtual meeting (VM) or “Zoom” fatigue. The present research examines this proposition, focusing on facial dissatisfaction—feeling unhappy about one's own facial appearance—as a potential psychological mechanism of VM fatigue. A study of survey responses from a panel of 613 adults found that VM fatigue was 14.9 percent higher for wome…
Balancing learning and enjoyment in serious games: Kerbal Space Program and the communication mediation model
Avatar customization orientation and undergraduate-course outcomes: Actual-self avatars are better than ideal-self and future-self avatars
How do social presence and active learning in synchronous and asynchronous online classes relate to students’ perceived course gains
Virtual game Changers: How avatars and virtual coaches influence exergame outcomes through enactive and vicarious learning
Exergames offer both enactive and vicarious learning through the graphical representations of the self and virtual coach. This study established and tested a model of exergame motivation with Social Cognitive Theory as the foundation. A 2 (User Avatar: Absent versus Present) × 2 (Virtual Coach: Absent versus Present) between-subjects experiment was conducted with 137 high school students. Results supported a model in which the user avatar led to …
Building a Stronger Casa: Extending the Computers Are Social Actors Paradigm
The computers are social actors framework (CASA), derived from the media equation, explains how people communicate with media and machines demonstrating social potential. Many studies have challenged CASA, yet it has not been revised. We argue that CASA needs to be expanded because people have changed, technologies have changed, and the way people interact with technologies has changed. We discuss the implications of these changes and propose an …
Viral vitriol: Predictors and contagion of online toxicity in World of Tanks
Men Do Not Rule the World of Tanks: Negating the Gender-Performance Gap in a Spatial-Action Game by Controlling for Time Played
The present research addresses the stereotype that women and girls lack the ability to succeed compared to men and boys in video games. Previous lab-based research has found that playing spatial-action video games potentially reduces the gender gap in spatial-thinking skills, while previous field studies of less spatially oriented online games have found that the perceived gender-performance gap actually results from the amount of previous gamepl…
Stereotype Threat in a Video Game Context and Its Influence on Perceptions of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Avatar-Induced Active Self-Concept as a Possible Mitigator
The connection between video games and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has become a key focus for education and game scholars alike. While games may have the power to bring more students toward STEM fields, gender stereotypes about gaming ability may hinder this potential. To examine this issue, two studies were conducted to investigate whether stereotype threat induced in a gaming context would affect players' gam…
Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video Games
This article examines how the embodied experience of contemporary avatar use overlaps with 19th-century American sentimental literature and cultural assumptions about gender and readerly identification in that period. Drawing on recent quantitative and qualitative research on avatar use and ongoing scholarship on nineteenth-century literature, we offer theoretical insights about the resonance between historical and contemporary understandings of …
Playing by the Rules: Parental Mediation of Video Game Play
This study examined parental mediation of children's video game play in an Internet survey of 433 parents of children aged 5 to 18 years. We assessed the valence of active mediation (i.e., positive, negative, neutral) and the relationship between parental involvement and mediation techniques. Furthermore, we explored whether parental mediation was associated with child delinquency. Our results demonstrate that active mediation is generally negati…
Do Men Advance Faster Than Women? Debunking the Gender Performance Gap in Two Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Do Men Advance Faster Than Women
Prior research on digital games illustrates a perceived gender gap in participation and performance, suggesting men as playing more and better than women. This article challenges the gender gap using longitudinal behavioral data of men and women in 2 MMOs in the United States and China. Results show that women advance at least as fast as men do in both games. Thus, perceived gender-based performance disparities seem to result from factors that ar…
Stand by Your Man: An Examination of Gender Disparity in League of Legends
Although video gaming is becoming a more widespread activity beyond its historically core demographic of young males, participation in competitive gaming remains largely male dominated. Addressing this issue, this research examines the experience of female players in one of the world's most popular games, League of Legends. Two studies-one qualitative (with 15 participants) and the other quantitative (with 16,821 participants)-confirm that althou…
Why We Distort in Self-Report: Predictors of Self-Report Errors in Video Game Play
Using Cognitive Dissonance and Balance Theory, this study investigates factors that predict how and why MMO players inaccurately report their game playing time. It was hypothesized that players belonging to categories other than the stereotypical game player (e.g. younger, less educated, male) would be likely to underreport playing time. It was also hypothesized that those players who held less positive attitudes toward the game would be more lik…
Schmoozing and Smiting: Trust, Social Institutions, and Communication Patterns in an MMOG
This study examines how trust is related to online social institutions, self-disclosure, mode of communication, and message privacy in a popular MMOG, Everquest II. The findings, based on survey and behavioral data from over 3,500 players, illustrate how MMOGs may support trust development. Trust was higher within closer social circles: trust was highest in teammates, followed by other players across the game, followed by others online. Self-disc…
A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games
Stand by Your Man: An Examination of Gender Disparity in League of Legends
Although video gaming is becoming a more widespread activity beyond its historically core demographic of young males, participation in competitive gaming remains largely male dominated. Addressing this issue, this research examines the experience of female players in one of the world's most popular games, League of Legends. Two studies-one qualitative (with 15 participants) and the other quantitative (with 16,821 participants)-confirm that althou…
Schmoozing and Smiting: Trust, Social Institutions, and Communication Patterns in an MMOG
This study examines how trust is related to online social institutions, self-disclosure, mode of communication, and message privacy in a popular MMOG, Everquest II. The findings, based on survey and behavioral data from over 3,500 players, illustrate how MMOGs may support trust development. Trust was higher within closer social circles: trust was highest in teammates, followed by other players across the game, followed by others online. Self-disc…
Do Men Advance Faster Than Women? Debunking the Gender Performance Gap in Two Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Do Men Advance Faster Than Women
Prior research on digital games illustrates a perceived gender gap in participation and performance, suggesting men as playing more and better than women. This article challenges the gender gap using longitudinal behavioral data of men and women in 2 MMOs in the United States and China. Results show that women advance at least as fast as men do in both games. Thus, perceived gender-based performance disparities seem to result from factors that ar…
Why We Distort in Self-Report: Predictors of Self-Report Errors in Video Game Play
Using Cognitive Dissonance and Balance Theory, this study investigates factors that predict how and why MMO players inaccurately report their game playing time. It was hypothesized that players belonging to categories other than the stereotypical game player (e.g. younger, less educated, male) would be likely to underreport playing time. It was also hypothesized that those players who held less positive attitudes toward the game would be more lik…
As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world
This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. T…
Playing by the Rules: Parental Mediation of Video Game Play
This study examined parental mediation of children's video game play in an Internet survey of 433 parents of children aged 5 to 18 years. We assessed the valence of active mediation (i.e., positive, negative, neutral) and the relationship between parental involvement and mediation techniques. Furthermore, we explored whether parental mediation was associated with child delinquency. Our results demonstrate that active mediation is generally negati…
Stereotype Threat in a Video Game Context and Its Influence on Perceptions of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Avatar-Induced Active Self-Concept as a Possible Mitigator
The connection between video games and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has become a key focus for education and game scholars alike. While games may have the power to bring more students toward STEM fields, gender stereotypes about gaming ability may hinder this potential. To examine this issue, two studies were conducted to investigate whether stereotype threat induced in a gaming context would affect players' gam…
As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world
This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. T…
A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games
Schmoozing and Smiting: Trust, Social Institutions, and Communication Patterns in an MMOG
This study examines how trust is related to online social institutions, self-disclosure, mode of communication, and message privacy in a popular MMOG, Everquest II. The findings, based on survey and behavioral data from over 3,500 players, illustrate how MMOGs may support trust development. Trust was higher within closer social circles: trust was highest in teammates, followed by other players across the game, followed by others online. Self-disc…
Why We Distort in Self-Report: Predictors of Self-Report Errors in Video Game Play
Using Cognitive Dissonance and Balance Theory, this study investigates factors that predict how and why MMO players inaccurately report their game playing time. It was hypothesized that players belonging to categories other than the stereotypical game player (e.g. younger, less educated, male) would be likely to underreport playing time. It was also hypothesized that those players who held less positive attitudes toward the game would be more lik…
Stand by Your Man: An Examination of Gender Disparity in League of Legends
Although video gaming is becoming a more widespread activity beyond its historically core demographic of young males, participation in competitive gaming remains largely male dominated. Addressing this issue, this research examines the experience of female players in one of the world's most popular games, League of Legends. Two studies-one qualitative (with 15 participants) and the other quantitative (with 16,821 participants)-confirm that althou…
Do Men Advance Faster Than Women? Debunking the Gender Performance Gap in Two Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Do Men Advance Faster Than Women
Prior research on digital games illustrates a perceived gender gap in participation and performance, suggesting men as playing more and better than women. This article challenges the gender gap using longitudinal behavioral data of men and women in 2 MMOs in the United States and China. Results show that women advance at least as fast as men do in both games. Thus, perceived gender-based performance disparities seem to result from factors that ar…
Playing by the Rules: Parental Mediation of Video Game Play
This study examined parental mediation of children's video game play in an Internet survey of 433 parents of children aged 5 to 18 years. We assessed the valence of active mediation (i.e., positive, negative, neutral) and the relationship between parental involvement and mediation techniques. Furthermore, we explored whether parental mediation was associated with child delinquency. Our results demonstrate that active mediation is generally negati…
Sentimental Avatars: Gender Identification and Vehicles of Selfhood in Popular Media From Nineteenth-Century Novels to Modern Video Games
This article examines how the embodied experience of contemporary avatar use overlaps with 19th-century American sentimental literature and cultural assumptions about gender and readerly identification in that period. Drawing on recent quantitative and qualitative research on avatar use and ongoing scholarship on nineteenth-century literature, we offer theoretical insights about the resonance between historical and contemporary understandings of …
Building a Stronger Casa: Extending the Computers Are Social Actors Paradigm
The computers are social actors framework (CASA), derived from the media equation, explains how people communicate with media and machines demonstrating social potential. Many studies have challenged CASA, yet it has not been revised. We argue that CASA needs to be expanded because people have changed, technologies have changed, and the way people interact with technologies has changed. We discuss the implications of these changes and propose an …
Viral vitriol: Predictors and contagion of online toxicity in World of Tanks
Men Do Not Rule the World of Tanks: Negating the Gender-Performance Gap in a Spatial-Action Game by Controlling for Time Played
The present research addresses the stereotype that women and girls lack the ability to succeed compared to men and boys in video games. Previous lab-based research has found that playing spatial-action video games potentially reduces the gender gap in spatial-thinking skills, while previous field studies of less spatially oriented online games have found that the perceived gender-performance gap actually results from the amount of previous gamepl…
Stereotype Threat in a Video Game Context and Its Influence on Perceptions of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Avatar-Induced Active Self-Concept as a Possible Mitigator
The connection between video games and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has become a key focus for education and game scholars alike. While games may have the power to bring more students toward STEM fields, gender stereotypes about gaming ability may hinder this potential. To examine this issue, two studies were conducted to investigate whether stereotype threat induced in a gaming context would affect players' gam…
Facial Appearance Dissatisfaction Explains Differences in Zoom Fatigue
Viewing self-video during videoconferences potentially causes negative self-focused attention that contributes to virtual meeting (VM) or “Zoom” fatigue. The present research examines this proposition, focusing on facial dissatisfaction—feeling unhappy about one's own facial appearance—as a potential psychological mechanism of VM fatigue. A study of survey responses from a panel of 613 adults found that VM fatigue was 14.9 percent higher for wome…
Balancing learning and enjoyment in serious games: Kerbal Space Program and the communication mediation model
Avatar customization orientation and undergraduate-course outcomes: Actual-self avatars are better than ideal-self and future-self avatars
How do social presence and active learning in synchronous and asynchronous online classes relate to students’ perceived course gains
Virtual game Changers: How avatars and virtual coaches influence exergame outcomes through enactive and vicarious learning
Exergames offer both enactive and vicarious learning through the graphical representations of the self and virtual coach. This study established and tested a model of exergame motivation with Social Cognitive Theory as the foundation. A 2 (User Avatar: Absent versus Present) × 2 (Virtual Coach: Absent versus Present) between-subjects experiment was conducted with 137 high school students. Results supported a model in which the user avatar led to …
Machine Learning(s) in gaming disorder through the user-avatar bond: A step towards conceptual and methodological clarity
In response to our study, the commentary by Infanti et al. (2024) raised critical points regarding (i) the conceptualization and utility of the user-avatar bond in addressing gaming disorder (GD) risk, and (ii) the optimization of supervised machine learning techniques applied to assess GD risk. To advance the scientific dialogue and progress in these areas, the present paper aims to: (i) enhance the clarity and understanding of the concepts of t…
Exploring how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group work
We investigate how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group work. Female participants worked with two male confederates. Voices were filtered according to four voice gender anonymity conditions: (1) All unmasked, (2) Male confederates masked, (3) Female participant masked, and (4) All masked. When only male confederates used masked voices (compared to all unmasked), female participants spoke for a lon…
An Avatar's worth in the metaverse workplace: Assessing predictors of avatar customization valuation
Virtual economies with 3D assets have been studied for decades, often in the context of entertainment, but the concept of the metaverse as a workplace platform has only recently begun to take hold. This research addresses a gap in our understanding of how the enhanced ability for impression management in the metaverse workplace may relate to worker well-being and equity. We explore how demographics and previous virtual meeting (VM) experiences re…
How Does Exposure to General and Sexual Harassment Relate to Female Gamers’ Coping Strategies and Mental Health
Female gamers are often exposed to not only general harassment but also sexual harassment during online multiplayer games. Although studies have investigated the effects of harassment and associated coping strategies on the mental health of females within the workplace, comparable studies have not been conducted within online gaming environments. This study surveyed adult female gamers to assess the relationship between female gamers’ exposure to…
Openness to the Metaverse Workplace: Zoom Fatigue and Metaverse Information Seeking Mediate Gender Inequities
The metaverse—a network of three‐dimensional virtual worlds in which people can engage in everyday activities—could augment future workplaces given the widespread acceptance of remote work. While it is not fully conceptualized, many have experienced, observed, or learned about metaverse‐related technologies (e.g., online gaming and virtual reality), which will likely influence their openness to using the metaverse for professional purposes. In or…
Casa Renovations: Examining Social Responses to an Anthropomorphic Media Representative That Is Separate From the Core Technology Being Represented
To extend our understanding of CASA and account for changes in technological complexity and configuration, this research asks: Do increasing levels of social cues in a media representative that is separate from the core technology it represents lead to increased perceived anthropomorphism of the core technology? And does such perceived anthropomorphism predict positive treatment of the core technology? We conducted two complementary studies obser…
Focusing on Virtual Groups: A Method for Focus Group Interviews in Xr/Vr Group Settings
The art of Internet Research is always developing, while also firmly rooted in the theoretical frameworks of the past. As technologies have evolved over time, new ways of interacting have become pervasive, and with them, a need for a different means of analyzing such interactions. Through all of this change, internet researchers have discussed and developed effective methodologies to suit the needs of research. Significant work has been done on d…
Zoom Fatigue and Facial Dissatisfaction Relate to Virtual Meeting Engagement Differently in the U.S. and South Korean Contexts
Virtual meetings, facilitated through videoconferencing or virtual reality, have become a common form of workplace communication. Despite the advantages these meetings offer, enabling collaboration among workers in dispersed locations, the phenomenon of virtual meeting fatigue, commonly referred to as Zoom fatigue, has emerged as a significant concern. This study explores whether facial appearance dissatisfaction, a known contributor to Zoom fati…
Psychology (24 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Digital Games and Media (10 works) · Impact of Technology on Adolescents (10 works) · Human–computer interaction (9 works) · Multimedia (8 works) · Avatar (6 works) · Media Influence and Health (6 works)