Investigating the Perceived Realism of the Other User's Look-Alike Avatars

There are outstanding questions regarding the fidelity of realistic look-alike avatars that show that there is still substantial development to be done, especially as the virtual world plays a more vital role in our education, work and recreation. The use of look-alike avatars could completely change how we interact virtually. This paper investigates which features of other people's look-alike avatars influence our perceived realism. Four levels of avatar representations were assessed in this pilot study: a static avatar, a static avatar with lip sync corresponding to an audio recording, full face animation with audio and a full body animation. Results show that full-face and body animations are very important in increasing the perceived realism of avatars. More importantly, participants found the lip sync animation more unsettling (uncanny valley effect) than any of the other animations. The results have implications for the perception of other people's look-alike avatars in collaborative virtual environments.