Historically, at least 3 methodological problems have dogged experimental social psychology: the experimental control–mundane realism trade-off, lack of replication, and unrepresentative sampling. We argue that immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) can help ameliorate, if not solve, these methodological problems and, thus, holds promise as a new social psychological research tool. In this article, we first present an overview of IVET and review IVET-based research within psychology and other fields. Next, we propose a general model of social influence within immersive virtual environments and present some preliminary findings regarding its utility for social psychology. Finally, we present a new paradigm for experimental social psychology that may enable researchers to unravel the very fabric of social interaction.

Computer-mediated communication systems known as collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow geographically separated individuals to interact verbally and nonverbally in a shared virtual space in real time. We discuss a CVE-based research paradigm that transforms (i.e., filters and modifies) nonverbal behaviors during social interaction. Because the technology underlying CVEs allows a strategic decoupling of rendered behavior from the actual behavior of the interactants, conceptual and perceptual constraints inherent in face-to-face interaction need not apply. Decoupling algorithms can enhance or degrade facets of nonverbal behavior within CVEs, such that interactants can reap the benefits of nonverbal enhancement or suffer nonverbal degradation. Concepts underlying transformed social interaction (TSI), the ethics and implications of such a research paradigm, and data from a pilot study examining TSI are discussed. 1

Presence in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) can be divided into personal presence and co-presence. Personal presence is having a feeling of "being there" in the CVE oneself. Co-presence is having a feeling that one is in the same place as the other participants, and that one is collaborating with real people. We investigated the effects that avatar realism and functionality (in terms of simple gestures and facial expressions) have on co-presence in a collaborative virtual environment, by means of two small group behaviour experiments with 18 participants each. We measured co-presence subjectively, using a co-presence questionnaire that we developed. We found that there was a significant difference between the co-presence scores generated by avatars of different degrees of realism in their appearance. More realistic avatars generated higher levels of co-presence. We also found that avatars having gestures and facial expressions produced a significantly higher level of co-presence when compared to static avatars. We were not able to find the correlation between presence and copresence reported in some studies.

Virtual Reality (VR) is starting to be used in psychological therapy around the world. However, a

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Presence in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) can be classified into personal presence and co-presence. Personal presence is having a feeling of "being there" in the CVE yourself. Co-presence is having a feeling that one is in the same place as the other participants, and that one is collaborating with real people. In this paper we describe an experiment used to investigate the effects that small group collaboration and interaction has on personal presence and specially co-presence in a CVE. We hypothesise that collaboration and interaction enhances co-presence in a CVE. We found that there was a large difference in co-presence between two CVEs which produced different levels of collaboration and interaction. This supports our hypotheses that just having virtual representations of others is not sufficient to create a high sense of co-presence, and that one needs collaboration and interaction in order to enhance co-presence in a CVE. We measured personal presence subjectively, using a questionnaire developed by Slater et al. We have developed a co-presence questionnaire which assesses the levels of co-presence subjectively. We have also developed a collaboration questionnaire which measures group collaboration subjectively, as well as the degree of enjoyment and comfort with others in the group.

Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) that can be simultaneously shared by a number of participants located in different geographical locations, provide new possibilities for communication and collaboration, with a lot of potential for the way we work and exchange information. However, in order for such systems to be successful they need to provide the participants with a compelling experience and a high sense of presence. We postulate that the sense of presence can be used as a measure of how effective a virtual environment is. Slater et al [2] define presence as "a state of consciousness, the (psychological) sense of being in the virtual environment". Slater et al [...

Collaborative virtual environments (CVE’s) provide opportunities for interaction between participants at different physical locations. For CVE’s to be effective, participants must feel that they are present in the environment. It is believed that avatars using body-like figures increase presence. We outline a system for providing real-time facial animation to avatars in CVE’s and describe our current working prototype. Our system uses a performer driven approach, with markers aiding facial feature tracking. 1

We explored the association between users ’ social anxiety and the interactional fidelity of an agent (also referred to as a virtual human), specifically addressing whether the contingency of agents ’ nonverbal feedback affects the relationship between users ’ social anxiety and their feelings of rapport, performance, or judgment on interaction partners. This subject was examined across four experimental conditions where participants interacted with three different types of agents and a real human. The three types of agents included the Non-Contingent Agent, the Responsive Agent (opposite to the Non-Contingent Agent), and the Mediated Agent (controlled by a real human). The results indicated that people having greater social anxiety would feel less rapport and show worse performance while feeling more embarrassment if they experience the untimely feedback of the Non-Contingent Agent. The results also showed people having more anxiety would trust real humans less as their interaction partners. We discuss the implication of this relationship between social anxiety in a human subject and the interactional fidelity of an agent on the design of virtual characters for social skills training and therapy.

Historically, at least 3 methodological problems have dogged experimental social psychology: the experimental control–mundane realism trade-off, lack of replication, and unrepresentative sampling. We argue that immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) can help ameliorate, if not solve, these methodological problems and, thus, holds promise as a new social psychological research tool. In this article, we first present an overview of IVET and review IVET-based research within psychology and other fields. Next, we propose a general model of social influence within immersive virtual environments and present some preliminary findings regarding its utility for social psychology. Finally, we present a new paradigm for experimental social psychology that may enable researchers to unravel the very fabric of social interaction. Allport’s (1985) well-accepted definition of social psychology as “an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others ” (p. 3) points to the breadth of the discipline.