Effects of Social Contextual Variation Using Partner Avatars on Memory Acquisition and Retention

This study investigates how partner avatar design affects learning and memory when an avatar serves as a lecturer. Based on earlier research on the environmental context dependency of memory, we hypothesize that the use of diverse partner avatars results in a slower learning rate but better memory retention than that of a constant partner avatar. Accordingly, participants were tasked with memorizing Tagalog-Japanese word pairs. On the first day of the experiment, they repeatedly learned the pairs over six sessions from a partner avatar in an immersive virtual environment. One week later, on the second day of the experiment, they underwent a recall test in a real environment. We employed a between-participants design to compare the following conditions: the varied avatar condition, in which each repetition used a different avatar, and the constant avatar condition, in which the same avatar was used throughout the experiment. Results showed that participants in the varied avatar condition recalled significantly worse during the learning trials on the first day. However, we found no significant difference between conditions in the delayed recall test on the second day. We discuss these effects in relation to the social presence of the partner avatar. This study opens up a novel approach to optimizing the effectiveness of instructor avatars in immersive virtual environments.