2020/06/02 by Marius Rubo, Matthias Gamer · 33 citations
Computer Science · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Artificial intelligence #Avatar #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Communication #Computer science #Ecological validity #Eye tracking #Face (sociological concept) #Face Recognition and Perception #Facial expression #Field (mathematics) #Gaze #Human–computer interaction #Naturalism #Naturalistic observation #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Psychology #Reactivity (psychology) #Social psychology #Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts #Virtual reality
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/bjop.12453
published in British Journal of Psychology 112(1), 301-314 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2020/06/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
People show a robust tendency to gaze at other human beings when viewing images or videos, but were also found to relatively avoid gaze at others in several real-world situations. This discrepancy, along with theoretical considerations, spawned doubts about the appropriateness of classical laboratory-based experimental paradigms in social attention research. Several researchers instead suggested the use of immersive virtual scenarios in eliciting and measuring naturalistic attentional patterns, but the field, struggling with methodological challenges, still needs to establish the advantages of this approach. Here, we show using eye-tracking in a complex social scenario displayed in virtual reality that participants show enhanced attention towards the face of an avatar at near distance and demonstrate an increased reactivity towards her social gaze as compared to participants who viewed the same scene on a computer monitor. The present study suggests that reactive virtual agents observed in immersive virtual reality can elicit natural modes of information processing and can help to conduct ecologically more valid experiments while maintaining high experimental control.