Facilitating sense of presence and belongingness in a virtual reality environment through manipulation of social cues

目前的一组实验旨在寻找替代方法来增强QUE和沉浸感，而不是提高图形质量，这在VR开发中仍然具有技术挑战性（Egan等人，2016）。我们首先发现，社会互动对QUE和沉浸感的潜在好处在文献中通常被忽视。其次，存在感和归属感被认为是增强QUE和沉浸感的因素。进一步的证据表明，即使是没有情感的面孔和声音也能促进与虚拟化身更好的联系和互动。他们提出了三项研究，第一项研究是调查虚拟角色的面孔或声音是否真的能增加QUE和沉浸感。此外，这将测试同时拥有面孔和声音的虚拟角色是否会进一步提升体验。第二个提议的研究将测试使用与用户特征相似的面孔和声音的效果。最后，我们的目标是测试感知到的用户身份（例如，人类或非人类）的变化是否会影响QUE和沉浸感的水平，从而影响整体的VR体验。，考虑了是虚拟现实环境中的身份还是现实生活中的身份决定了用户的社交互动。提出了三项研究，以澄清面部和声音线索是否有助于更好的QUE和沉浸感，以及这些模式是否可以结合起来实现更好的体验。此外，他们还将澄清用户在多大程度上能够在VR环境中整合赋予他们的身份；以及它调节社会互动的程度，从而产生QUE和沉浸感。为了测量QUE和沉浸感这些因变量，将采用心率和皮肤电反应以及用户自我报告的新技术（Egan等人，2016），以及自我报告和问卷调查等主观方法。我们相信这些研究没有任何未解决的方法学问题。有经验和没有经验的玩家可能会产生不同的结果，这一事实已经被考虑在内，并将为专业水平如何影响VR中的社交互动提供新的见解。此外，所选择的任务描述的是一种射击游戏，玩家被放置在一个圆圈中，允许进一步发展超出所提议的实验范围。例如，可以利用虚拟角色不断避免将排球传给参与者的条件来模拟群体排斥及其与QUE和沉浸感的关系。综上所述，我们预计，拟议研究的结果将为VR应用行业带来相当大的好处，通过当前可用技术更容易获得的方法，向生产者提供最大化QUE和沉浸感的最佳方法。在保护消费者心理健康的同时。

The current set of experiments aims to find alternative methods to enhance QUE and immersiveness, other than improving graphics quality, which is still technically challenging in VR development (Egan et al., 2016). We first identified that the potential benefits of social interaction for QUE and immersiveness are generally neglected within the literature. Next the sense of presence and belongingness were recognised as factors enhancing QUE and immersiveness. Further evidence was brought that even non-affective faces and voices alone could facilitate better relatedness and interaction with virtual avatars. Three studies were proposed, the first investigating whether faces or voices of avatars can indeed increase QUE and immersiveness. Furthermore, this would test whether avatars having both faces and voices further benefits experience. The second proposed study would test the effect of using faces and voices with similar characteristics to those of the user. Finally, we aim to test whether changes in the perceived user's identity (e.g., human or non-human) affects the level of QUE and immersiveness and thus the VR experience overall., the question as to whether identity within the VR environment or real life determine users' social interaction was considered. Three studies were proposed which would clarify whether facial and vocal cues contribute towards better QUE and immersiveness and also if these modalities can be combined to achieve an even better experience. Furthermore, they would clarify to what extent users are able to integrate the identity given to them in the VR environment; and the extent to which it modulates social interactions, and consequently QUE and immersiveness. To measure QUE and immersivenessthese dependent variables, novel techniques using heart rate and electro dermal responses together with user's self-reports would will be employed (Egan et al., 2016), but also subjective methods such as self-report and questionnaires. We believe these studies do not face any unaddressed methodological issues. The fact that experienced and non-experienced gamers might produce divergent results has been taken into account and will actually offer new insights into how the level of expertise shapes social interactions in VR. Additionally, the chosen task depicting a volley game where players are positioned in a circle allows for further developments beyond the scope of the proposed experiments. For example, conditions where the avatars constantly avoid passing the volleyball to the participant could be used so as to simulate group exclusion and its relationship with QUE and immersiveness. To conclude, we foresee that findings from the proposed studies will bring a considerable benefit to the VR application industry, by informing producers on the best methods to maximize QUE and immersiveness, through methods which are more accessible with the available technology at the moment.while protecting consumers' mental health at the same time.