Coherence Changes Gaze Behavior In Virtual Human Interactions

We discuss the design and results of an experiment investigating Plausibility Illusion in virtual human (VH) interactions, in particular, the coherence of conversation with a VH. This experiment was performed in combination with another experiment evaluating two display technologies. As that aspect of the study is not relevant to this poster, it will be mentioned only in the Materials section. Participants who interacted with a low-coherence VH looked around the room markedly more than participants interacting with a high-coherence VH, demonstrating that the level of coherence of VHs can have a detectable effect on user behavior and that head and gaze behavior can be used to evaluate the quality of a VH interaction