{"id":2767,"date":"2023-01-30T16:03:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T16:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2024-06-14T16:05:54","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T16:05:54","slug":"vr-avatars-rival-online-interactions-in-creating-closeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2023\/Q1\/vr-avatars-rival-online-interactions-in-creating-closeness","title":{"rendered":"VR avatars rival online interactions in creating closeness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"purdue-initial-words-wrap\"><p class=\"purdue-initial-words wp-block-paragraph\">WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. &mdash;<\/p> \n<p>Can virtual reality (VR) avatars foster meaningful human connections as effectively as that of other online communication methods, and even real-life interactions? A Purdue University case study suggests they can. The study also demonstrates the potential for VR avatar use to reduce race and gender bias.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe hypothesized that outcomes wouldn\u2019t differ regardless of whether the interacting avatars appeared to be human or not and regardless of whether there was a match or a mismatch in avatar type between interactants,\u201d said&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hhs.purdue.edu\/directory\/christopher-r-agnew\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Agnew<\/a>, the study\u2019s author and a professor of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hhs.purdue.edu\/psy\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">psychological sciences<\/a>&nbsp;in Purdue\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hhs.purdue.edu\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">College of Health and Human Sciences<\/a>. \u201cOur results showed that closeness and related outcomes can be generated and experienced in virtual reality regardless of the stylized avatar types we used in the study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Agnew also suggests that if non-human VR avatars allow people to meaningfully connect, they may have untapped potential for mitigating bias by eliminating gender, race and ethnicity cues from interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/research\/features\/stories\/vr-avatars-rival-online-interactions-in-creating-closeness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">More information can be read on Purdue\u2019s Office of the Executive Vice President for Research website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div id=\"note\" class=\"post-content__attribution \">\n    <div class=\"columns\"> \n                    <div class=\"column\"> \n                <p class=\"post-content__source\">\n                    <strong>Media Contact:<\/strong>\u00a0Amy Raley,\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:araley@purdue.edu\">araley@purdue.edu<\/a>                <\/p>\n            <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. &mdash; Can virtual reality (VR) avatars foster meaningful human connections as effectively as that of other online communication methods, and even real-life interactions? A Purdue University case study suggests they can. The study also demonstrates the potential<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"department":[],"source":[29],"purdue_today_topic":[],"coauthors":[10],"class_list":["post-2767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-excellence","source-purdue-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2769,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions\/2769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}