Reading 11

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For class 12/6/16
Post Comments by 11:59 pm on 12/4/16

Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias

Tabitha C. Peck, Sofia Seinfeld, Salvatore M. Agliotic, Mel Slater

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810013000597

or on Box at

https://uwmadison.box.com/s/n5x5elx5r4b41jn0ra1pyjl9d0mk2ep3

 

The influence of racial embodiment on racial bias in immersive virtual environments
V Groom, JN Bailenson, C Nass
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.363.6379&rep=rep1&type=pdf

 

Drumming in immersive virtual reality: the body shapes the way we play
K Kilteni, I Bergstrom, M Slater
http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/bitstream/2445/53803/1/633518.pdf

 

As with our previous few discussions, we will leave the exact form of your discussion open to you.  Feel free to write about what you like as long as you

  1. Discuss all three articles: You don’t need to discuss the articles to the same depth, but be sure to at least mention all of them in your posts
  2. Write at a minimum of four paragraphs: Think about this being about a page of text
  3. Be respectful: It is fully ok to disagree with the premise, conclusion and so on of these articles but remember that others may also have different opinions as you.

If you are looking for motivation, here are questions you can use to motivate your discussions.

  • What are you general impressions from reading these papers?  Positive, negative, curious, etc.
  • Why do you think the results of the Groom paper and Peck paper are different?
  • Do you agree with the premise of these articles that VR can be used to positively change people’s possibly less desirable characteristics?  Is there a danger in doing this?
  • Do you believe in the idea of characteristics of an avatar shaping your own behavior?  Have you ever had an experience like this from another medium (such as video games, films, books, etc)?
  • What do you think of the experiments?  Are they well grounded?  Are there things you would change?  Are their results of the papers that you find curious or unexpected?
  • If you were to design a follow-up experiment to these, what would it be?  Are there ways to overcome the limitations listed in the discussion sections?