Influence of avatar creation on attitude, empathy, presence, and para-social interaction

Authors:
Donghun Chung;Brahm Daniel DeBuys;Chang S. Nam
Affiliations:
School of Communication, Kwangwoon University, Seoul Korea;Department of Communication, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR;Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR
Venue:
HCI'07 Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Human-computer interaction: interaction design and usability
Year:
2007

Citing 2
Cited 1

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Proceeding of the 16th International Academic MindTrek Conference

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Abstract

The present paper focuses on the influence of avatar creation in a video game. More specifically, this study investigates the effects of avatar creation on attitude towards avatar, empathy, presence, and para-social interaction of female non-game users. As a cyber-self, an avatar is a graphic character representing a user in cyberspace. Avatars are primarily used in the entertainment industry as high-tech novelties, controlled by game users, for high-end video games. Some games provide game characters by default that users cannot change, but other games provide various options gamers can choose. What if game users can create their own avatars? Do they have more psychological closeness with their avatars as their cyber-selves? This study tested the differences of attitude, empathy, presence, and para-social interaction of female non-game users between an avatar creation group and a nonavatar creation group and resulted in no difference.