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The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar

A rich body of research suggests that self-associated stimuli are preferentially processed and therefore responses to such stimuli are typically faster and more accurate. In addition, people have an understanding of what they consider their “Self” and where it is located, namely near the head and up...

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Autores principales: Friehs, Maximilian A., Schäfer, Sarah, Frings, Christian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9301311/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35874390
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918688
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author Friehs, Maximilian A.
Schäfer, Sarah
Frings, Christian
author_facet Friehs, Maximilian A.
Schäfer, Sarah
Frings, Christian
author_sort Friehs, Maximilian A.
collection PubMed
description A rich body of research suggests that self-associated stimuli are preferentially processed and therefore responses to such stimuli are typically faster and more accurate. In addition, people have an understanding of what they consider their “Self” and where it is located, namely near the head and upper torso—further boosting the processing of self-related stimuli if they are presented near the felt location of the self. We were interested in whether the same mechanism can be found when people transfer their “Self” into a static avatar. We investigated this in two studies with N = 33 and N = 39 young, healthy adults, respectively. Taken together, the results showed that (i) people indeed show enhanced processing for self-avatar-related stimuli and (ii) that self-associations are stronger if the to-be-associated stimuli are closer to the avatar’s upper torso—suggesting some kind of a projected location of the self in the avatar. This implies that attention is not equally distributed across the avatar. Beyond a theoretical level, this also has implications for practical use. For example, digital games opting for a non-traditional user interface where information is displayed on or in the direct vicinity of the character should take this effect into account when choosing which information to present where (i.e., present the most crucial piece of information close to the self-center of the avatar).
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spelling pubmed-93013112022-07-22 The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar Friehs, Maximilian A. Schäfer, Sarah Frings, Christian Front Psychol Psychology A rich body of research suggests that self-associated stimuli are preferentially processed and therefore responses to such stimuli are typically faster and more accurate. In addition, people have an understanding of what they consider their “Self” and where it is located, namely near the head and upper torso—further boosting the processing of self-related stimuli if they are presented near the felt location of the self. We were interested in whether the same mechanism can be found when people transfer their “Self” into a static avatar. We investigated this in two studies with N = 33 and N = 39 young, healthy adults, respectively. Taken together, the results showed that (i) people indeed show enhanced processing for self-avatar-related stimuli and (ii) that self-associations are stronger if the to-be-associated stimuli are closer to the avatar’s upper torso—suggesting some kind of a projected location of the self in the avatar. This implies that attention is not equally distributed across the avatar. Beyond a theoretical level, this also has implications for practical use. For example, digital games opting for a non-traditional user interface where information is displayed on or in the direct vicinity of the character should take this effect into account when choosing which information to present where (i.e., present the most crucial piece of information close to the self-center of the avatar). Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9301311/ /pubmed/35874390 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918688 Text en Copyright © 2022 Friehs, Schäfer and Frings. 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
Friehs, Maximilian A.
Schäfer, Sarah
Frings, Christian
The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar
title The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar
title_full The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar
title_fullStr The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar
title_full_unstemmed The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar
title_short The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar
title_sort (gami)fictional ego-center: projecting the location of the self into an avatar
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9301311/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35874390
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918688
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