Together in Sync: Assessing Prosocial Behavior with a Full-Body Interactive Mixed Reality Experience

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Social Neuroscience

Background:

• Interpersonal synchrony (IPS) is crucial for social development.
• Mixed Reality (MR) offers novel platforms for studying social interactions.
• Understanding technology's impact on children's prosocial behavior is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of interpersonal synchrony (IPS) in full-body interactive Mixed Reality (MR) environments on children's prosocial behavior.
• To assess how synchronous versus asynchronous group activities in MR influence affiliation and collaboration.
• To explore the role of context, task structure, and perceived coordination in shaping social outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Developed DragonIce 2.0, a two-part MR game to induce synchronous and asynchronous group activities.
• Conducted a comparative study with 9-10-year-old children.
• Utilized system logs and self-report measures to assess affiliation and collaboration.

Main Results:

• Synchronous MR activities positively impacted children's prosocial behavior.
• Perceived coordination and task structure significantly influenced social outcomes.
• Findings underscore the importance of interaction dynamics in immersive settings.

Conclusions:

• Interpersonal synchrony in MR environments can effectively promote children's prosocial behavior.
• MR technology can be designed to foster social connection, collaboration, and group engagement.
• This study provides a novel method for studying prosociality in technology-mediated contexts.