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One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames

With the growing popularity of exergames, researchers have noted the importance of presenting players with customizable avatars to encourage the long-term adoption of healthy behaviors offline. However, the “idealized” avatar bodies presented in avatar customization interfaces can represent limited...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Czerwonka, Sara, Alvarez, Adrian, McArthur, Victoria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34925120
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695258
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author Czerwonka, Sara
Alvarez, Adrian
McArthur, Victoria
author_facet Czerwonka, Sara
Alvarez, Adrian
McArthur, Victoria
author_sort Czerwonka, Sara
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description With the growing popularity of exergames, researchers have noted the importance of presenting players with customizable avatars to encourage the long-term adoption of healthy behaviors offline. However, the “idealized” avatar bodies presented in avatar customization interfaces can represent limited body types and often problematically represent gender as binary. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of the avatar customization interfaces of six console-based exergames. Results of our analysis indicate that customization options tend to be limited in exergames, especially with regard to body type and gender. Implications for avatar self-priming, self-identification, and healthy behavior adoption are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-86758622021-12-17 One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames Czerwonka, Sara Alvarez, Adrian McArthur, Victoria Front Psychol Psychology With the growing popularity of exergames, researchers have noted the importance of presenting players with customizable avatars to encourage the long-term adoption of healthy behaviors offline. However, the “idealized” avatar bodies presented in avatar customization interfaces can represent limited body types and often problematically represent gender as binary. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of the avatar customization interfaces of six console-based exergames. Results of our analysis indicate that customization options tend to be limited in exergames, especially with regard to body type and gender. Implications for avatar self-priming, self-identification, and healthy behavior adoption are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8675862/ /pubmed/34925120 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695258 Text en Copyright © 2021 Czerwonka, Alvarez and McArthur. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Czerwonka, Sara
Alvarez, Adrian
McArthur, Victoria
One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames
title One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames
title_full One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames
title_fullStr One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames
title_full_unstemmed One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames
title_short One Ring Fit to Rule Them All? An Analysis of Avatar Bodies and Customization in Exergames
title_sort one ring fit to rule them all? an analysis of avatar bodies and customization in exergames
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34925120
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695258
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