News Researchers study VR yawning

bit-tech · 24 Jan 2019

Conclusions not at all boring.
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edzieba · 24 Jan 2019

the team went onto the second stage of the experiment: Inserting an avatar which would watch the player, having noted that in the real world being observed suppresses the contagious yawning reflex. The result: Subjects showed no signs of yawn suppression, suggesting that while their brains were convinced enough to 'catch' a yawn from a VR video they were still unconvinced that any virtual participants were real.

Extending the study still further, the researchers put a real-life person in the room with the VR-immersed subjects: Despite not being able to see or hear this person, but having been told they would be present throughout the test, the subjects showed signs of yawn-suppression - meaning their brains saw the hidden-but-real person as real, but the visible-yet-virtual person as fake.
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Looking through the study, it does not appear the researchers informed the participants that the avatar was being controlled by a person* (vs. just an NPC) unlike the researcher-in-the-room or 'virtual webcam' cases.

* Even if it was not, and merely using canned motions and gaze-targeting (which it also was not mentioned, so the avatar may have been exceptionally unconvincing).

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News Researchers study VR yawning

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News Researchers study VR yawning

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edzieba Virtual Realist

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