Abstract

Embodied personalized avatars are a promising new tool to investigate moral decision-making by transposing the user into the 'middle of the action' in moral dilemmas. Here, we tested whether avatar personalization and motor control could impact moral decision-making, physiological reactions and reaction times, as well as embodiment, presence and avatar perception. Seventeen participants, who had their personalized avatars created in a previous study, took part in a range of incongruent (i.e., harmful action led to better overall outcomes) and congruent (i.e., harmful action led to trivial outcomes) moral dilemmas as the drivers of a semi-autonomous car. They embodied four different avatars (counterbalanced - personalized motor control, personalized no motor control, generic motor control, generic no motor control). Overall, participants took a utilitarian approach by performing harmful actions only to maximize outcomes. We found increased physiological arousal (SCRs and heart rate) for personalized avatars compared to generic avatars, and increased SCRs in motor control conditions compared to no motor control. Participants had slower reaction times when they had motor control over their avatars, possibly hinting at more elaborate decision-making processes. Presence was also higher in motor control compared to no motor control conditions. Embodiment ratings were higher for personalized avatars, and generally, personalization and motor control were perceptually positive features. These findings highlight the utility of personalized avatars and open up a range of future research possibilities that could benefit from the affordances of this technology and simulate, more closely than ever, real-life action.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2162-2172
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Volume30
Issue number5
Early online date4 Mar 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2024

Keywords

  • Automobiles
  • Avatars
  • Decision making
  • Electronic mail
  • Ethics
  • Human-centered computing-Empirical studies in HCI
  • Motor drives
  • Usability testing
  • Vehicles
  • Virtual reality

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Signal Processing
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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