Study on Electronic KANSEI in Cyberspace Communication

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The purpose of this study is to observe and analyze the cyberspace communications mediated by Electronic-KANSEI. We defined the Electronic-KANSEI as intuitive expressions and recognitions of emotion, sensation, inter-personal relationships and/or contextual element of social environments. It is considered that Electronic-KANSEI is transmitted by texts and images displayed on the computer screen. Three virtual worlds in the visualized cyberspace were observed. These were "Fujitsu Habitat II", "J-chat" and "Worlds Away". These three systems are known as the "virtual chat". The users of the virtual chat operate graphical "avatars" that represent their existences and characteristics online. Analysis was carried out with respect to the distances between avatars (avatar distance), the body shapes of avatars, the genders and their conversion of avatars, the body colors of avatars, the head shapes and the colors of avatars. We obtained the results that the most frequent distance between avatars was 75pixels on the display when the average density of avatars was low, while it was 55pixels when the average density of avatars was high. Furthermore, we found that the avatar distances were different in the body part that faced the opponents. These results indicate that the avatar distances were not layout acts of users, but the spacing between human-like avatars. The users' selections of shapes and colors of avatar bodies and heads were also investigated. It was found that some kinds of shapes and colors were selected. The results suggest the current tendency in the virtual world where the users prefer the "ordinary", "general", "slim" and "light" sense and way. We discussed these results and suggestions from the human science point of view.