The Influence of Avatar Generation and Appearance on Embodiment and User Experience in Virtual Reality

Consumer-grade virtual reality (VR) now allows embodying full-body avatars to act within the virtual world. Although the effect of avatar appearance on embodiment has been investigated in several studies, the role of user involvement in the creation process remains unclear. In this study, we compare a generic, a self-configured, and a photo-generated full-body avatar with similar realism levels in terms of embodiment and user experience. We conducted a study with 30 participants, which revealed higher ratings of attractiveness, valence, and threat reaction under the self-configured condition than those in the photo-generated avatar. However, direct measures for embodiment remained inconclusive. These results motivate further research in the field of self-configured avatars, considering the feedback about avatar diversity that is still worthy of improvement.

Journal article