Modern computer-based applications often require the user to interact with avatars. Depending on the task at hand, spatial dissociation between the orientations of the user and the avatars might arise. As a consequence, the user has to adopt the avatar’s perspective and identify herself/himself with the avatar, possibly changing the user’s self-representation in the process. The present study aims to identify the conditions that benefit this change of perspective with objective performance measures and subjective self-estimations by integrating the idea of avatar-ownership into the cognitive phenomenon of spatial compatibility. Two different instructions were used to manipulate a user’s perceived ownership of an avatar in otherwise identical situations. Users with the high-ownership instruction reported higher levels of perceived ownership of the avatar and showed larger spatial compatibility effects from the avatar’s point of view in comparison to the low ownership instruction. This supports the hypothesis that perceived ownership benefits perspective taking.

In modern digital applications, users often interact with virtual representations of themselves or others, called avatars. We examined how these avatars and their perspectives influence...

Elaborate sound design, including background music, ambient sounds (sounds describing the game world), and character sounds (sounds generated by the character’s actions), plays a pivotal role in modern video games. However, the influence of these different types of sound on the player’s experience has not been extensively researched. This study examines the influence of these sound types on immersion, avatar identification, fun, and perceived competence. In two experiments, participants played League of Legends under four different sound conditions. The first experiment (N₁ = 32) revealed a non-significant trend in the effect of character sounds on avatar identification. Ambient sounds, however, were limited because the task restricted participants’ movement across the game map. Consequently, we adapted the task to allow for a wider variety of ambient sounds in the second experiment (N₂ = 32). Here, a significant impact of character sounds on immersion, avatar identification, and fun was observed, as well as an interaction effect of character sounds and ambient sounds on fun. Furthermore, we observed a trend, though not statistically significant, suggesting that ambient sounds may influence the player’s sense of flow. These findings underline the distinct effects of different sound types, and we discuss implications for the design of sound in video games.

Phishers exploit the social nature of social media, thereby targeting young adults, who are highly susceptible to phishing. This study focuses on two under-researched factors influencing young adults’ susceptibility to social media phishing: the user’s relation to the message sender and Fear of Missing Out (FoMO). In an online vignette study, 193 young adults were presented with Instagram chat messages from either known or unknown senders, accompanied by varying consequences for not clicking. These ranged from missing an event with no other user (no consequences) to missing an event with one (low) or several other users (high consequences). The analysis focused on intended behaviour and suspicion, while also capturing young adults’ situational fear of missing out on the scenario-based event with the message sender (State FoMO) and their individual Trait FoMO. The results highlight that the user-sender relation is a strong predictor of phishing susceptibility and a crucial contributor to State FoMO. Furthermore, young adults who are high in Trait FoMO exhibited lower suspicion towards phishing attempts. These findings are discussed along with methodological considerations. In addition, strategies to mitigate the identified vulnerabilities are suggested, focusing on areas where social media phishing is most likely to affect young adults.

Putting oneself in the shoes of a digital alter ego becomes an increasingly relevant part of our everyday experience. In modern day psychology, these interactions can be examined within the frameworks of visual perspective taking and body ownership. Both target similar questions: What does it take, to become one with the avatar? When do we show the same behavior and make the same experiences, as if we were in its place? In this study, we want to address the role of action effect consistency for these concepts. We manipulated the participants’ sense of agency over a task-irrelevant avatar in a Simon task by providing either corresponding or random action effects. These effects could be either embodied and therefore linked to the avatar (Experiment 1) or independent of it (Experiment 2). We used stimulus-response compatibility effects from the avatar’s point of view as a measure for spontaneous visual perspective taking and a questionnaire to measure the perceived body ownership of the avatar. The results showed that corresponding action effects lead to increased spontaneous perspective taking of the avatar, regardless of whether the effect was linked to the avatar or not. Though the avatar compatibility effects were overall more pronounced in the embodied action effect condition. However, significant differences in perceived body ownership were only observed if the effects were linked to the avatar. The results might prove useful to further our understanding of subjective and objective measurements of interactions with avatars.

If an actor takes the perspective of an avatar, spatial dissociations could arise between the perspective of the actor and the perspective of the avatar. These become particularly interesting when solving spatial compatibility tasks. Effects of spatial compatibility are usually explained by a match or mismatch of automatic behavioural tendencies and intentional mapping processes. The question is whether actors develop such behavioural tendencies for an avatar and thereby are able to neglect their own perspective. In the experiments, actors take the perspective of the avatar and pressed ipsilateral or contralateral left–right keys in response to lateralised coloured discs. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that compatibility effects are tied to the avatar but not to the actor. Experiment 3 revealed that participants could ignore the perspective of the avatar. We concluded that the automatic behavioural tendencies in compatibility experiments are not as automatic as sometimes assumed. It is likely that the present results are not only applicable to the use of avatars but also to other human-controlled robots and drones.