Tipos de micrófonos según su construcción

The study in Chapter 5 investigated the relationship between anxiety levels and graphical fidelity of avatars in a virtual social simulation in order to identify the impact of graphical fidelity of virtual avatars. The study measured the degree of anxiety elicited by various degrees of graphical details of virtual avatars among students preparing for a job-interview, and compared their responses to a real situation. The findings indicated that the highest graphic detail of the virtual

avatar came closest to mimicking the levels of anxiety observed in the real situ- ation. In measures of behavioural, physiological, and verbal anxiety, there was statistically no mean difference between the condition of highly realistic avatar and real interviewer. However, an interesting result indicated that an avatar at a lower level of realism (e.g. a cartoon-like avatar) also successfully provoked a significant degree of anxiety, similar to the level observed in the real situation. Even if the cartoon-like avatar failed to replicate the physiological anxiety of the real condition, the results in behavioural and verbal anxiety measures represented no difference to those of the real condition, and also no strong evidence could be found to criticise any graphical effects between the highest graphic levels of avatar and the cartoon-like avatar. According to these results, less graphically detailed virtual avatars may be sufficient to stimulate some anxiety even if the avatar does not imitate a human in an ideal way. This appeared to support the hypothesis that anxiety may be induced more by the thought of being in a stressful situation than by the graphical realism of the virtual avatar.

Various types of virtual avatar have been developed in previous studies. All studies successfully provoked a significant degree of anxiety, even at lower levels of graphical details. For example, Pertaubet al. (2002) have immersed phobics in a virtual public speaking situation with cartoon-like avatars. The study concluded that participants responded to virtual avatars as real listeners, which provoked significant levels of distress. In addition, Jameset al. (2003) exposed individuals to various virtual social situations and found anxiety was provoked when par- ticipants interacted with virtual humans who appeared cartoon-like and reacted in an unfriendly way. Even with these unrealistic graphical details of avatars, participants in both studies reported significant increases in anxiety. The results of these two studies support our finding that less graphically detailed virtual avatars could stimulate a significant degree of anxiety, even if the avatar does not

mimic the appearance of a real human.

Taken together, the results of this study show that more visual details of avatar provoke a greater degree of anxiety in VRET. The results may also suggest that with a medium level of realism, a virtual avatar could be enough to use as a social actor for the objective of activating anxiety. The relationship between the factor of visual realism and the degree of anxiety is illustrated in figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1: A Hypothetical Representation of Human Anxiety in VRET and Visual Realism or Immersion (Hendrix & Barfield, 1996)

Figure 7.1 describes a hypothetical representation of human anxiety in VRET. As the figure shows, the severity of anxiety is not strongly affected by the degree of visual realism in VRET, while anxiety and visual realism are correlated by an asymptotic relationship. In other words, the aspect of visual fidelity could be influenced by the thought of participants to the context of the situation. This phenomenon can be explained by mental representations induced in the partic- ipants by the thought of being involved in a potentially social interaction. The

mental representation can be figured from a number of sources, such as long-term memory (e.g. memory of their performance from past experienced job-interview), present occurrence (e.g. somatic symptoms such as increased eye-blink, heart rate, and sweating), and external signs (e.g. negative reactions from the inter- viewer when giving answers to the job-interview questions). At the level of cogni- tive processes, the participants may internally struggle with negative assumptions about the context of the social situation, and begin to observe themselves or to monitor the sensations. These internal processes automatically provoke the so- matic and cognitive symptoms of anxiety. Even if the present study was not entirely focused on verifying this assumption, the facts outlined in Chapters 4 and 5 offer some evidence to support this phenomenon. For example, partic- ipants who had some experience of job-interviews were often sensitive to the avatar’s verbal responses and attitude. In addition, an increase in the feeling of anxiety appeared when participants thought the virtual avatar responded in a negative way. These facts support the assumption that the participant tends to be concerned about other’s responses and the situation. To make this assump- tion clearer, it could be necessary for further research to investigate the potential effects of mental representations in terms of provoking anxiety during the course of VR exposure through a cognitive approach.