Proximity in VR: The Importance of Character Attractiveness and Participant Gender

International audienceIn this study, we expand upon recent evidence that the motion of virtual characters affects the proximity of users who are immersed with them in virtual reality (VR). Attractive motions decrease proximity, but no effect of character gender on proximity was found. We designed a similar experiment where users observed walking motions in VR which were displayed on male and female virtual characters. Our results show similar patterns found in previous studies, while some differences related to the model of the character emerged