Using Virtual Characters to Study Human Social Cognition

Virtual reality is providing new tools to explore and quantify human social cognition. Here we review some recent studies using virtual characters to study imitation behaviour, with a focus on VR methods. We created virtual characters which demonstrate pointing actions and find that typical adults spontaneously copy action height. In a second study, we are able to create virtual characters which mimic the head movement of a participant in a naturalistic conversation task, but find no evidence for increases in rapport or liking. These studies demonstrate how virtual characters can be used to examine social cognition, and the value of greater interaction between cognitive psychology and computing in future.