An Odyssey into Virtual Worlds: Exploring the Impacts of Technological and Spatial Environments
An Odyssey into Virtual Worlds: Exploring the Impacts of Technological and Spatial Environments
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DOI：
10.2307/23042809
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发表时间：
2011-09
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Animesh Animesh-Animesh;A. Pinsonneault;Sung-Byung Yang;Wonseok Oh
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文献类型：
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作者：
Animesh Animesh-Animesh;A. Pinsonneault;Sung-Byung Yang;Wonseok Oh
虽然对三维虚拟环境的研究很多，但对虚拟世界的社会和商业方面知之甚少。考虑到《第二人生》等大型社交虚拟世界的出现，以及虚拟商品销售的急剧增长，理解虚拟世界中虚拟商品购买的动力是很重要的。采用刺激-有机体-反应（S-O-R）框架，我们研究了虚拟世界中的技术（互动性和社交性）和空间（密度和稳定性）环境如何影响参与者的虚拟体验（远程呈现、社交存在和流动），以及体验如何随后影响他们的反应（购买虚拟商品的意愿）。我们对354名第二人生居民的调查结果表明，互动性增强了与对象的互动，对临场呈现和心流有显著的正向影响。此外，促进与参与者互动的社交性与社交存在显著相关，尽管对心流没有观察到如此显著的影响。此外，密度和稳定性都显著影响参与者的虚拟体验；稳定性有助于用户建立强大的社会联系，从而增加社交存在和流量。然而，与我们预测的曲线模式相反，密度与流动和社会存在呈线性相关。有趣的是，结果显示了密度的两个相反的影响：虽然密度降低了流动的程度，但密度增加了社会存在的数量。既然社会存在被发现会增加流动，那么密度对流动的净影响在很大程度上取决于涉及这三个构念的关联的相对强度。最后，我们发现流动在技术环境和空间环境对虚拟产品购买意愿的影响中起中介作用。最后，我们讨论了我们的发现在理论和实践上的贡献。
Although research on three-dimensional virtual environments abounds, little is known about the social and business aspects of virtual worlds. Given the emergence of large-scale social virtual worlds, such as Second Life, and the dramatic growth in sales of virtual goods, it is important to understand the dynamics that govern the purchase of virtual goods in virtual worlds. Employing the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, we investigate how technological (interactivity and sociability) and spatial (density and stability) environments in virtual worlds influence the participants' virtual experiences (telepresence, social presence, and flow), and how experiences subsequently affect their response (intention to purchase virtual goods). The results of our survey of 354 Second Life residents indicate that interactivity, which enhances the interaction with objects, has a significant positive impact on telepresence and flow. Also, sociability, which fosters interactions with participants, is significantly associated with social presence, although no such significant impact was observed on flow. Furthermore, both density and stability are found to significantly influence participants' virtual experiences; stability helps users to develop strong social bonds, thereby increasing both social presence and flow. However, contrary to our prediction of curvilinear patterns, density is linearly associated with flow and social presence. Interestingly, the results exhibit two opposing effects of density: while it reduces the extent of flow, density increases the amount of social presence. Since social presence is found to increase flow, the net impact of density on flow depends heavily on the relative strength of the associations involving these three constructs. Finally, we find that flow mediates the impacts of technological and spatial environments on intention to purchase virtual products. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the theoretical and practical contributions of our findings.