Avatars: You Really Can Go Back

According to recent estimates, more than 80 percent of Internet consumers and Fortune 500 companies have an avatar or presence in an online virtual community, including virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) and social networks (e.g., Facebook).  In contemporary usage, “avatar” refers to general graphic representations that are personified by means of computer technology. Depending on the web site, an avatar may take the form of a static picture or a dynamic cartoonish character, with facial and body characteristics and style of dress chosen by the real-life user.  Internet users typically have some degree of choice as to the selection, modification, and accessorizing of a self-representational avatar, which can be constructed to represent one’s ideal or aspirational selves, or as a canvas for experimentation of various alternative selves, as MIT psychoanalyst Shelly Turkle observed in interviews with participants of virtual games:

                Online the plain represented themselves as glamorous, the old as young,

                the young as older.  Those of modest means wore elaborate jewelry.  In

                virtual space, the cripple walked without crutches, and the shy improved

                their chances as seducers.

As consumer behavior researcher Russell Belk observed, in the pre-digital era, new identities could be tested by changing one’s hair style or color, growing facial hair, changing one’s lipstick and eye coloring, buying new clothes or cars, and so on.  Part of the great appeal of avatars for consumers in the digital era is derived from the physical invisibility that can be maintained within virtual space, which offers a relatively safe environment for self-experimentation.  Richard Allan Bartle, one of the creators of the first virtual world, MUD, was one of the first to point out that avatars now facilitate this process online by “let[ting] you find out who you are by letting you be who you want to be,” without the concomitant risks that would be evident in the physical world, providing a “looking glass” not only for others, but for ourselves.  A good example of this is the Ditto designer eyeglasses website, which invites each visitor to create a 3-D video of his or her face via their computer webcam to virtually try on glasses.  In this way, online shoppers can “see” themselves in any pair of the site’s growing collection of designer eyewear.

 Researchers have begun to turn their attention to avatars.  In a post a couple weeks ago I mentioned the Milgram obedience experiments and the ethical implications of doing that sort of research in the contemporary era of institutional review boards, ethical guidelines, and increasing suspicions about deception and invasion of privacy.  Avatars, however, are proving to be a more ethical alternative to real people.  In other words, you can convince someone that they are administering painful electric shocks to a virtual research participant, but not a real one.  No surprise, there are even ethical implications in using avatars for this sort of research, such as the argument that if you desensitize people to aggressing against someone in the virtual world, they will be inured to doing the same in the real world.  

Now comes an intriguing set of studies from a research team led by Domma Banakou, Raphaela Groten, and Mel Slater from the Experimental Virtual Environments Lab for Neuroscience and Technology in Barcelona.  This is pretty complicated stuff, but the title of their recently published research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tells it all: "Illusory ownership of a virtual child body causes overestimation of object sizes and implicit attitude changes"  And here's a pretty clear summary from the Beaming website:

Immersive virtual reality can give adults such a strong illusion of being inside a child’s body that it affects their perception of the physical sizes of objects as well as their personal attributes, according to a study. Mel Slater and colleagues use immersive virtual reality to give adults avatars. Half had the virtual body of a 4-year-old and the other half a scaled-down adult body, the same size as the child body. Participants viewed their virtual bodies, which moved in real-time determined by the participants’ movements, from a first person perspective. Both groups reported that they felt a sense of “ownership” over their virtual bodies and both overestimated the size of objects in the virtual environment. However, participants in the child bodies overestimated object size by a greater degree than participants in scaled-down adult bodies. The “children” were also far more likely to associate with child-like attributes than the “small adults.” The sense of body ownership and differences in perception disappeared when the authors used the same virtual bodies, but disassociated participants’ movements from their avatars. This study demonstrates that the type of avatar can influence people’s size perceptions and self-attributes, a result that has potential in various computer-based applications, the authors argue.

Maybe it's an exaggeration to say we can go back again, but this research has some interesting implications.  Altering people's bodily self-representation, for example, by having an adult 'occupy' the body of a child,' seems to have the effect on our system of reproducing the experience of the world 'as a child experiences it.'  It's easy to recognize the potential here for manufacturers and designers of products for children or adults.  The ability to occupy the 'body' of a virtual child could provide insight into children's experience and attitudes towards furniture, toys, clothing, etc.  The same holds true for other kinds of individuals, such as the obese and handicapped.

As we choose our self-representations in virtual reality settings, our behaviors might be influenced accordingly.  In other words, we don't only exert influence on our avatars--they also exert influence on us.

Further reading:

1. D. Banakou, R. Groten, M. Slater.  Illusory ownership of a virtual child body causes overestimation of object sizes and implicit attitude changes.   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013.  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1306779110

2. Belk, R.  (2013).  Extended self in a digital world.  Journal of Consumer Research, in press.

3.  Slater, M., Antley, A., Davison, A. et al.(2006). A virtual reprise of the Stanley Milgram obedience experiments. http://www.plosone.org
4.  Also check out Sebastian Kuntz's comprehensive Slideshare presentation, Immersive Virtual Reality, at:  http://www.slideshare.net/SebKuntz/immersive-virtual-reality

Milgram Returns - The Obedience Experiments 50 Years Later

A bit off the beaten path of marketing and consumer behavior issues, I can't help but signal a rapidly-approaching seminal event: the 2013 Obedience to Authority Conference, which will take place from August 6-8 in Bracebridge, Canada, two hours from
Toronto in the Muskoka lake-district of Ontario, Canada.  Co-convener Nestar Russell and his team have lined up 50 international panelists and presenters to discuss 50 years of rumination, debate, implications, and replications of Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments.   The full program is available here, headlined by keynote speaker, Thomas Blass, Milgram's biographer who also happened to have been my social psychology professor at the University of Maryland during the early 1970s.  It was in that class that I first learned of the obedience project and I have written extensively about it during ensuing decades, particularly in my research ethics books.  Blass will give a talk entitled “The impact of the obedience experiments on contemporary culture and thought.”

Milgram may be better known among consumer behavior researchers for his small world concept, which gave rise to the '6 degrees of separation' notion (both discussed in detail in my book, Connecting With Consumers as well as Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point). But Milgram's deceptive research design has informed much discussion in the consumer behavior literature regarding the appropriateness of informed consent violations in research with human participants.  Among the general public, the most disconcerting aspect of the research, which involved the bogus delivery of electric shocks to a hapless victim under the guise of a learning experiment, is what it revealed about ourselves: that people are capable of inflicting extreme, potentially deadly punishment on innocent victims if compelled to do so by an authority figure. The implications of the findings for understanding apparently incomprehensible atrocities ranging from the Holocaust to Abu Ghraib have kept the research salient in our collective consciousness across five decades, and so it is no wonder that the impending conference has generated a great degree of interest.

Given the various ethical strictures that are now in place in most research institutions, it has become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for researchers to conduct Milgram-type experiments in the contemporary context.  Yet researchers have become quite ingenious in terms of developing alternative methodologies to study obedience-related questions, such as the use of virtual testing using avatars as opposed to real-life apparent 'victims.'

I myself never met Milgram, although a couple of my Temple University grad school professors knew him well and admired him greatly.  According to one, Milgram was torn over the ethical criticisms of his work and believed that people just wouldn't let the issues rest and concentrate on his subsequent work.  Think what you will of his obedience experiments, Milgram was a ground-breaking pioneer in the field of social psychology, greatly respected by his students and peers.  I won't be able to attend the conference, but Nestar Russell informed me that there is a chance they will publish something afterwards and perhaps even stream some key talks from the conference.  I'll keep you posted if developments warrant.

 Additional Reading:

Kimmel, A. J.  Deception in psychological research: A necessary evil?  The Psychologist, August 2011.

Blass, T.  The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram.  Basic Books, 2007.

Also check out Prof. Blass's website: http://www.stanleymilgram.com/