# Effects of Self-Avatar and Gaze on Avoidance Movement Behavior

## TL;DR

This study examines how self-avatar presence and gaze direction influence avoidance movement behavior in virtual environments, revealing that self-avatar and gaze significantly affect path length, duration, and deviation.

## Contribution

It provides new insights into how self-avatar and gaze cues modulate users' movement paths in virtual spaces, using detailed kinematic analysis.

## Key findings

- Self-avatar presence increases path length and deviation.
- Gaze direction influences movement duration.
- Self-avatar and gaze cues affect avoidance behavior.

## Abstract

The present study investigates users' movement behavior in a virtual environment when they attempted to avoid a virtual character. At each iteration of the experiment, four conditions (Self-Avatar LookAt, No Self-Avatar LookAt, Self-Avatar No LookAt, and No Self-Avatar No LookAt) were applied to examine users' movement behavior based on kinematic measures. During the experiment, 52 participants were asked to walk from a starting position to a target position. A virtual character was placed at the midpoint. Participants were asked to wear a head-mounted display throughout the task, and their locomotion was captured using a motion capture suit. We analyzed the captured trajectories of the participants' routes on four kinematic measures to explore whether the four experimental conditions influenced the paths they took. The results indicated that the Self-Avatar LookAt condition affected the path the participants chose more significantly than the other three conditions in terms of length, duration, and deviation, but not in terms of speed. Overall, the length and duration of the task, as well as the deviation of the trajectory from the straight line, were greater when a self-avatar represented participants. An additional effect on kinematic measures was found in the LookAt (Gaze) conditions. Implications for future research are discussed.