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Avatar-User Bond as Meta-Cognitive Experience: Explicating Identification and Embodiment as Cognitive Fluency
Young June Sah1, Minjin Rheu2, Rabindra Ratan2
1School of Media, Arts, and Science, Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea.
Frontiers in Psychology
|July 26, 2021
Summary
This study introduces cognitive fluency as a new theory for understanding avatar use effects. It explains the avatar-user bond through meta-cognitive experiences, integrating existing psychological theories.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Virtual Reality
Background:
- Existing theories on avatar effects, such as the Proteus effect and priming effects, lack a unified theoretical foundation.
- Disagreement persists regarding the underlying psychological mechanisms driving user responses to avatars.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a novel theoretical framework for understanding the psychological effects of avatar use.
- To explicate the avatar-user bond through the concept of cognitive fluency, a meta-cognitive experience.
- To integrate existing theories by reinterpreting identification and embodiment within this new framework.
Main Methods:
- Theoretical synthesis of existing research on avatar psychology.
- Conceptual analysis of meta-cognitive experience and cognitive fluency.
- Revisiting empirical evidence through the lens of the proposed cognitive fluency framework.
Main Results:
- The study proposes cognitive fluency as a unifying psychological mechanism for avatar effects.
- Identification and embodiment are reconceptualized as manifestations of cognitive fluency at identity and physical levels.
- The framework offers a new perspective for interpreting existing empirical findings on avatar use.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive fluency provides a robust theoretical foundation for understanding the avatar-user psychological bond.
- This meta-cognitive approach reconciles and extends previous theories on avatar effects.
- The proposed framework facilitates a deeper understanding of user interactions in virtual environments.
Keywords:
Proteus effectavatar-user bondcognitive fluencyembodimentidentificationmeta-cognitive experienceMore Related Videos
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