Evaluating social buffering in AR: Replication of the Qi et al. experiment

Closed Human-Computer Interaction Master Project No Affiliation

Motivation and Potential

Social buffering is the phenomenon of recovering more easily from stressful experiences when a conspecific is present [1]. This effect has been found in a variety of social animals species as well as humans [1]. Recently, Qi et al. [2] showed that even the presence of a stranger can reduce physiological responses to aversive sound cues. A follow-up study by Qi et al. [3] showed that social buffering can also occur in virtual reality (VR) when a virtual agent is present in the virtual environment. In their VR condition, they furthermore found this effect for females with high social concern, whereas this was not the case when a real person was present. These findings show that social buffering can occur even when a virtual conspecific is simply present, which could be used in future technology-supported interventions.

The study proposed in this exposé will replicate the second, VR-based study by Qi et al. [3] in augmented reality (AR) instead of VR. Depending on the use-case, AR may provide potential benefits over VR. In the field of exposure therapy for example, AR enables the user to see their real body in a real environment while facing fearful virtual stimuli. Compared to VR, this could both increase realism in a way that is beneficial for therapy while decreasing costs for asset creation [4, 5]. As such, this study aims to see if a social buffering effect may similarly happen in AR, which could be useful in future AR-based anxiety therapy.

Related Work

Kothgassner et al. [6] showed that virtual social support can be effective, if participants believe there is a human behind the avatar. Participants in a study by Kane et al. [7] reported lower stress crossing a virtual cliff with a conspecific being present and attentive. Although these studies are mentioned in and related to the study by Qi et al. [3], the latter found effects even when participants knew the virtual confederate was not oper- ated by a human and furthermore faced in the opposite direction with no interaction.

More recently, Norouzi et al. [8] conducted a study regarding social support during a stressful calculation task. They used a Microsoft HoloLens to display either a virtual dog, a virtual human or no support figure in AR. They found no significant difference regarding participants’ heart rate or performance between conditions. However, in all of the study’s conditions, there was a real human experimenter facing and judging the participant in direct view. As this could be a potential limitation to the effect of the virtual support figure, participants in our study will neither find a real human present in the test chamber, nor will the virtual conspecific pay attention to their performance.

Further informal literature search found no comparable studies examining social buffering in AR yet. However, related work comparing AR to VR is of interest. Westermeier et al. [9] showed that there can be significant differences regarding plausibility and presence between AR and VR in simulated power outage conditions. They suggest that users may pay higher attention to the augmented objects in AR compared to more homogeneous VR environments as a possible reason. Wolf et al. [10] meanwhile compared VR to optical see-through AR as well as video see-through (VST) AR and found differences regarding spatial presence but not regarding humanness or eerieness of the participants’ virtual alter ego. We conclude two aspects from this. First, in line with [10], the perceived humanness of the virtual agent could be comparable to the VR study and thus sufficient to be assessed as a conspecific. We will assess this question in the study with the material described below. Second, we want to mitigate the protrusion of the virtual agent by using VST AR. Furthermore, the actual exposure to and rating of the cues will be implemented on traditional screens placed in the real environment in order to not include any visual augmented objects besides the conspecific.

Research Question

We want to know whether the presence of a virtual conspecific displayed by an AR headset has an impact on female participants fear responses when exposed to aversive cues. The study will be conducted in a way that allows direct comparison to previous work [3] regarding comparison of VR and AR conditions in the future.

Methodology

The proposed study is a replication of [3] with the goal of comparability. Its methodology thus will strictly follow the original study. This includes conducting the study in the same real-life room, using previously used digital assets and the same instruments for measuring skin conductance responses (SCRs) as well as the same questionnaires, which will be described below. Participants will be recruited within the university’s own recruitment system. Eligible students may claim time spent to gather mandatory credit points. About 80 participants will be recruited with an expected average duration of 45 min per person. In line with the original study, participants will be pre-screened for depressive symptoms and randomly assigned to either social or alone conditions. They will be given questionnaires regarding anxiety sensitivity, perceived social support, positive and negative affect as well as state and trait anxiety before the study is conducted.

During the study, participants will be exposed to aversive and neutral sound cues played via the same headphones used in the original study. The sound cues will be accompanied by preceding congruent circle and square image cues on a physical display in front of the participant. In both conditions, participants will be wearing VST AR headsets. In the social condition, the physical room will be augmented by a virtual conspe- cific implemented in Unreal Engine, executing the same task but facing the opposite direction. In the alone condition, there will be an empty chair instead. In addition to the participants SCRs being measured, they will also rate their feeling after each cue is played. The study will be preceded by practice trials. After the study, participants will be asked to rate the confederate according to their impression and to furthermore fill out a questionnaire about how they perceived the confederate’s social presence. Biocca, Harms, and Gregg [11] define this mediated social presence as “the moment-by-moment awareness of the co- presence of another sentient being accompanied by a sense of engagement with the other”.

Tasks and Timeline

References

1. Takefumi Kikusui, James T Winslow, and Yuji Mori. “Social buffering: relief from stress and anxiety”. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 361 (1476) (2006), pp. 2215–2228
2. Yanyan Qi et al. “The mere physical presence of another person reduces human autonomic responses to aversive sounds”. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287 (Jan. 2020), p. 20192241.
3. Yanyan Qi et al. “Social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender, social concern, and the presence of real vs virtual agents”. In: Translational Psychiatry 11 (Dec. 2021).
4. Oliver Baus and Stéphane Bouchard. “Moving from Virtual Reality Exposure-Based Therapy to Augmented Reality Exposure-Based Therapy: A Review”. In: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (2014).
5. Ghaida Albakri et al. “Phobia Exposure Therapy Using Virtual and Augmented Reality: A Systematic Review”. In: Applied Sciences 12 (3) (2022).
6. Oswald D. Kothgassner et al. “Virtual social support buffers stress response: An experimental comparison of real-life and virtual support prior to a social stressor”. In: Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 63 (Nov. 2018).
7. Heidi S. Kane et al. “Mere presence is not enough: Responsive support in a virtual world”. In: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (1) (2012), pp. 37–44.
8. Nahal Norouzi et al. “The Advantages of Virtual Dogs Over Virtual People: Using Augmented Reality to Provide Social Support in Stressful Situations”. In: International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 165 (Apr. 2022), p. 102838.
9. Franziska Westermeier et al. “Exploring Plausibility and Presence in Mixed Reality Experiences”. In: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics PP (May 2023), pp. 1–10.
10. Erik Wolf et al. “Plausibility and Perception of Personalized Virtual Humans between Virtual and Augmented Reality”. In: 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). 2022, pp. 489–498.
11. Frank Biocca, Chad Harms, and Jennifer Gregg. “The Networked Minds Measure of Social Presence: Pilot Test of the Factor Structure and Concurrent Validity”. In: 4th annual International Workshop on Presence, Philadelphia (Jan. 2001).

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