It's in Their Eyes: A Study on Female and Male Virtual Humans' Gaze

摘要

Social psychological research demonstrates that the same behavior might lead to different evaluations depending on whether it is shown by a man or a woman. With a view to design decisions with regard to virtual humans it is relevant to test whether this pattern also applies to gendered virtual humans. In a 2x2 between subjects experiment we manipulated the Rapport Agent's gaze behavior and its gender in order to test whether especially female agents are evaluated more negatively when they do not show gender specific immediacy behavior and avoid gazing at the interaction partner. Instead of this interaction effect we found two main effects: gaze avoidance was evaluated negatively and female agents were rated more positively than male agents.