Asymmetric Virtual Environments: Exploring the Effects of Avatar Colors on Performance

Abstract

Due to the virtual nature of Virtual Environments (VE), there is an affordance to change game and avatar features asymmetrically, where the features that are rendered for one participant can be different from those rendered for other participants while still sharing the same virtual world. We are calling these kinds of VEs Asymmetric Virtual Environments (AVE). In this paper we present work on a platform for studying online interactions using an AVE. We do so through a preliminary study that explores the effects of avatar colors on individual and group performance when solving a scavenger hunt in a 3D virtual environment followed by a location identification task in a 2D virtual environment. While the results of this preliminary study are not conclusive, our data seem to indicate that players' avatar colors can indeed influence online performance.