Schedule of Events | Symposia

Neural Mechanism for Preference/Unpreference Perception of Virtual Avatar Appearance in Human-Computer Communication

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Ayumi Takemoto¹ (ayutakemo@gmail.com), Motoaki Sugiura¹; ¹Tohoku University

The development of human-computer interaction systems has accelerated over the past decade, especially since the beginning of COVID-19. However, as you did, users quickly get bored and stop using such new technologies. To develop a human-computer communication system using virtual avatars without losing the user's interest and attention, the neural mechanisms in the perception of virtual avatars that users want to talk to again were tackled in this research. Forty-two healthy individuals participated in the experiment. Participants watched two videos in sequence in which two virtual avatars introduced themselves, then they reported which avatars they wanted to talk to again. Meanwhile, brain activities were corrected by 3 Tesla-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). After that, personality traits and avatar impressions were reported. The results indicated that the left middle temporal gyrus which is associated with reacting toward familiar faces, was more activated in the selected avatars than in the non-selected. Furthermore, a few personality traits based on Big-5 personality traits correlated with the brain activity of the right frontal eye field in the superior frontal gyrus which is associated with emotional valence. We will introduce the differences in neural networks and the effects of individual differences when virtual avatars do or do not hold the user's attention in the presentation, and the possibility of measuring preference or non-preference for virtual avatars using brain activity.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Person perception