The impact of avatar embodiment in the context of virtual training environments

For the past few decades, protocols using immersive virtual reality to study human behavior have become increasingly more common. Indeed, the technology offers many new advantages that traditional experimental setups lacked (e.g., ecological validity). However, beyond its use as an experimental tool, experiments using VR have revealed new phenomena caused by the use of these devices. Such phenomena include the Proteus effect which describes the way users of virtual environments will
tend to conform their behaviors and attitudes to the expectations evoked by the appearance of the avatars they embody. The literature now counts many demonstrations of this effect using a wide variety of avatars, however the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Therefore, the goal of my thesis will be to bring a better theoretical understanding of the Proteus effect. To do so, I have completed a literature review of the effect and conducted one experiment. In the future, I plan to carry out two additional experiments.