Cognitive Impact of Social Virtual Reality
Audience and Mere Presence Effect of Virtual Companions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23039554 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Olga Sutskova (0000-0003-3222-524X, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, corresponding author), Atsushi Senju (0000-0002-8081-7170, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine), Tim J Smith (0000-0002-2808-9401, University of the Arts London) |
| Editors | Pinaki Chakraborty (0000-0002-2010-8022) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 2023 |
| Pages | 1-19 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2578-1863 • E-ISSN: 2578-1863 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1155/2023/6677789 |
| OpenAlex | W4388965271 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 45 |
Sharing experiences with others is an important part of everyday life. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) promises to simulate these experiences. However, whether IVR elicits a similar level of social presence as measured in the real world is unclear. It is also uncertain whether AI-driven virtual humans (agents) can elicit a similar level of meaningful social copresence as people-driven virtual-humans (avatars). The current study demonstrates that both virtual human types can elicit a cognitive impact on a social partner. The current experiment tested participants’ cognitive performance changes in the presence of virtual social partners by measuring the social facilitation effect (SFE). The SFE-related performance change can occur through either vigilance-based mechanisms related to other people’s copresence (known as the mere presence effect (MPE)) or reputation management mechanisms related to other people’s monitoring (the audience effect (AE)). In this study, we hypothesised AE and MPE as distinct mechanisms of eliciting SFE. Firstly, we predicted that, if head-mounted IVR can simulate sufficient copresence, any social companion’s visual presence would elicit SFE through MPE. The results demonstrated that companion presence decreased participants’ performance irrespective of whether AI or human-driven. Secondly, we predicted that monitoring by a human-driven, but not an AI-driven, companion would elicit SFE through AE. The results demonstrated that monitoring by a human-driven companion affected participant performance more than AI-driven, worsening performance marginally in accuracy and significantly in reaction times. We discuss how the current results explain the findings in prior SFE in virtual-world literature and map out future considerations for social-IVR testing, such as participants’ virtual self-presence and affordances of physical and IVR testing environments.
Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Human–computer interaction · Sense of presence · Social facilitation · Virtual actor · Virtual reality · Action Observation and Synchronization · Applied Psychology · Computer Science · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Psychology · Social Psychology · Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
Adding immersive virtual reality to a science lab simulation causes more presence but less learning
Target Article
Social Facilitation
Toward a second-person neuroscience
A Systematic Review of Social Presence
On the Multimodal Resolution of a Search Sequence in Virtual Reality
Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias
Break the “wall” and become creative
Individual differences in the social facilitation effect
Mere presence effects in humans
The world looks better together
Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments
It doesn’t matter what you are!” Explaining social effects of agents and avatars
Machines and Mindlessness
Social facilitation
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |