How Do I Know What to Say? The Influence of Spatial Context on Verbal Behavior in Virtual

EnvironmentsJennifer Wua, Erica Mattinglyb

, & Philipp Kraemerb

aUniversity of Notre Dame and bUniversity of Kentucky

Virtual Reality Technology

What is it?

What is its value? Psychological Realism (Jarmon, 2009) Applications

Education Entertainment Social Interactions Business

Components of Virtual World Experiences

Avatars

Virtual Environments: Promote collaborative, decision-making

and social interaction (Sallnas, 2005) Presence: the key to virtual psychology

(Held & Durlach, 1992, Ijsselsteijn, de Ridder, Freeman, & Avons, 2000)

Presence (Bulu, 2012)

Physical/place Social Co-presence

Spatial Cues in Virtual Environments increase physical and social presence (Horvath & Lombard, 2010)

Explained by Goel, Johnson, Junglas, & Ives (2013): Spatial Model of Interaction: environments provide interaction cues (Benford &

Fahlen, 1993) Awareness-Attention Theory: individuals become aware of the cues, give greater

attentive to interactions (Davenport & Beck, 2001)

Current Study Question: Does the amount (quality) of spatial cues influence verbal social

interactions in a virtual world?

Hypothesis: Spatial cues in environments provide social context and facilitate interaction as demonstrated through more collaborative dialogue

Procedure Participants

N = 34, 17 male and 17 female students at the University of Kentucky.

Design 2x2 mixed-factor design Within-subjects factor: virtual environment Between-subjects factor: gender

Second Life ( free for download at www.secondlife.com) Utilizes desktop interface with keyboard and mouse control

Amusement Park - carnival games, colorful

Lab Room – muted, enclosed space

Procedure Avatar Selection

Pre-training

Interacted with confederate avatar for 10 minutes in each of two virtual locations in succession

Dependent Variable: Conversation logs

Confederate Avatars Participants interacted with confederate avatars who were always of the

opposite gender as the participant

Results Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) category scores (Pennebaker,

Booth, & Francis (2007)

Included gender as an Independent Variable

Measures: Word Count (indicator of verbosity) First Person Plural Pronouns, Assent, Inclusive and Exclusive categories (indicators

of collaboration)

Conducted 2x2 multivariate ANOVAs using a split-plot design

Word Count (WC) – total number of words expressed

Psych Lab Amusement Park0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160 151.18

54.59

99.71

51.57

Female Male

Tota

l Num

ber o

f Wor

ds

• Gender: F(1,29) = 6.97, p < .02 Environment:F(1,29) = 122.87, p < .01 Interaction:F(1,29) = 13.8, p < .01

First Person Plural Pronouns (FPP) – Ex: ‘we,’ ‘our,’ ‘us’

Environment:F(1,29)=12.22, p < .01

Psych Lab Amusement Park0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

0.47

1.99

0.77

2.15

FemaleMale

M N

umbe

r of F

irst P

erso

n Pl

ural

s

Assent (ASSENT) – terms indicating agreement. Ex: ‘ok,’ ‘sure,’ ‘I agree’

Environment:F(1,29) = 9.72, p < .01

Psych Lab Amusement Park0

2

4

6

8

10

12

6.04

10.15

5.49

7.53

Female

Male

M N

umbe

r of R

efer

ence

s to

Asse

nt

Exclusive (EXCL) – terms related to division. Ex: ‘without’ ‘but’

Environment:F(1,29) = 5.29, p < .03

Psych Lab Amusement Park0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

3.26

2.77

3.62

1.68FemaleMale

M N

umbe

r of E

xclu

sion

Refe

renc

es

Conclusions & Implications Increased verbosity in environments with few spatial cues.

Influenced some measures of collaboration and social connectivity. More spatial cues led to more FPP and ASSENT terms (although it had no effect on

INCL) More spatial cues decreased EXCL terms

Limited scope

Basis for future investigation of properties of virtual environments

Thank you! Thanks to my mentor: Philipp Kraemer

Acknowledgement: Funding in support of this project was provided through the University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence Endowment.

Any questions?