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The Impact of Navigation on Proxemics in an Immersive Virtual Environment with Conversational Agents

Rose Connolly, Lauren Buck, Victor Zordan, Rachel McDonnell

TL;DR

This study examines how locomotion type in immersive VR affects proxemics during interactions with embodied conversational agents. Using an Oculus Quest 2 setup with AI-driven ECAs, the authors compare natural walking to controller-based teleportation while measuring interpersonal distance, embodiment, and co-presence. The main finding is that teleportation leads to significantly closer IPD than walking, with female participants maintaining larger distances overall; walking also increases agency and body ownership, while co-presence remains similar across locomotion methods. The results highlight spatial perception biases and spatial cognitive load as potential drivers of proximity differences and underscore the importance of considering locomotion methods when designing socially immersive VR experiences.

Abstract

As social VR grows in popularity, understanding how to optimise interactions becomes increasingly important. Interpersonal distance (the physical space people maintain between each other) is a key aspect of user experience. Previous work in psychology has shown that breaches of personal space cause stress and discomfort. Thus, effectively managing this distance is crucial in social VR, where social interactions are frequent. Teleportation, a commonly used locomotion method in these environments, involves distinct cognitive processes and requires users to rely on their ability to estimate distance. Despite its widespread use, the effect of teleportation on proximity remains unexplored. To investigate this, we measured the interpersonal distance of 70 participants during interactions with embodied conversational agents, comparing teleportation to natural walking. Our findings revealed that participants maintained closer proximity from the agents during teleportation. Female participants kept greater distances from the agents than male participants, and natural walking was associated with higher agency and body ownership, though co-presence remained unchanged. We propose that differences in spatial perception and spatial cognitive load contribute to reduced interpersonal distance with teleportation. These findings emphasise that proximity should be a key consideration when selecting locomotion methods in social VR, highlighting the need for further research on how locomotion impacts spatial perception and social dynamics in virtual environments.

The Impact of Navigation on Proxemics in an Immersive Virtual Environment with Conversational Agents

TL;DR

This study examines how locomotion type in immersive VR affects proxemics during interactions with embodied conversational agents. Using an Oculus Quest 2 setup with AI-driven ECAs, the authors compare natural walking to controller-based teleportation while measuring interpersonal distance, embodiment, and co-presence. The main finding is that teleportation leads to significantly closer IPD than walking, with female participants maintaining larger distances overall; walking also increases agency and body ownership, while co-presence remains similar across locomotion methods. The results highlight spatial perception biases and spatial cognitive load as potential drivers of proximity differences and underscore the importance of considering locomotion methods when designing socially immersive VR experiences.

Abstract

As social VR grows in popularity, understanding how to optimise interactions becomes increasingly important. Interpersonal distance (the physical space people maintain between each other) is a key aspect of user experience. Previous work in psychology has shown that breaches of personal space cause stress and discomfort. Thus, effectively managing this distance is crucial in social VR, where social interactions are frequent. Teleportation, a commonly used locomotion method in these environments, involves distinct cognitive processes and requires users to rely on their ability to estimate distance. Despite its widespread use, the effect of teleportation on proximity remains unexplored. To investigate this, we measured the interpersonal distance of 70 participants during interactions with embodied conversational agents, comparing teleportation to natural walking. Our findings revealed that participants maintained closer proximity from the agents during teleportation. Female participants kept greater distances from the agents than male participants, and natural walking was associated with higher agency and body ownership, though co-presence remained unchanged. We propose that differences in spatial perception and spatial cognitive load contribute to reduced interpersonal distance with teleportation. These findings emphasise that proximity should be a key consideration when selecting locomotion methods in social VR, highlighting the need for further research on how locomotion impacts spatial perception and social dynamics in virtual environments.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 26 sections, 3 figures, 6 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background and Related Work
  3. Proxemics
  4. Distance Estimation
  5. Locomotion
  6. Embodied Conversational Agents
  7. Objectives and Hypotheses
  8. Experimental Setup
  9. Body Tracking & Locomotion Implementation
  10. Embodied Conversational Agent
  11. Proximity Measurement
  12. EXPERIMENT DESIGN
  13. Participants
  14. Procedure
  15. Results
  16. ...and 11 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: User (left) and avatar they were embodied in (right). Note that user only saw themselves in first-person - there was no reflective surface.
  • Figure 2: Third-person view of a participant (left) teleporting towards an embodied conversational agent (right).
  • Figure 3: Boxplots of proximity measurement distribution across locomotion type and gender (mean is labelled)