Comparing flat and spherical displays in a trust scenario in avatar-mediated interaction
Published in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2014
We report on two experiments that investigate the influence of display type and viewing angle on how people place their trust during avatar-mediated interaction. By monitoring advice seeking behavior, our first experiment demonstrates that if participants observe an avatar at an oblique viewing angle on a flat display, they are less able to discriminate between expert and non-expert advice than if they observe the avatar face-on. We then introduce a novel spherical display and a ray-traced rendering technique that can display an avatar that can be seen correctly from any viewing direction. We expect that a spherical display has advantages over a flat display because it better supports non-verbal cues, particularly gaze direction, since it presents a clear and undistorted viewing aspect at all angles. Our second experiment compares the spherical display to a flat display. Whilst participants can discriminate expert advice regardless of display, a negative bias towards the flat screen emerges at oblique viewing angles. This result emphasizes the ability of the spherical display to be viewed qualitatively similarly from all angles. Together the experiments demonstrate how trust can be altered depending on how one views the avatar.
Recommended citation: Pan, Y., Steptoe, W., & Steed, A. (2014, April). Comparing flat and spherical displays in a trust scenario in avatar-mediated interaction. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1397-1406).
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