Virtual Reality and Body Heat: A Pilot Study

Recent studies in social warmth suggest the essence of physical warmth to the interpersonal interaction and human relationship. Mediated warmth therefore can serve as a computer mediated communication (CMC) when the persons are physically separated. Through this study, a pilot experiment was designed and developed to learn about the possibility of body warmth as an intimate cue when experiencing social interaction in virtual reality. The pilot experiment aims to learn more about the proposed methodology and discuss future improvements for the actual experiment which will be carried out later. In the experiment, social proximity was investigated by simulating an interaction in virtual reality and utilizing the equilibrium theory of intimacy compensation. The participant was expected to keep further distance from the avatar when they were put into the virtual environment with another participant (who is actually a confederate) while feeling the warmth on their shoulder when wearing the heat vest. As a result, the experiment’s manipulation worked as intended and the cover story was credible. However, some prominent issues need to be further discussed: How should the instructions be integrated to ensure the immersive experience in the virtual environment? Which part of the heat vest should be heated to simulate the tactile intimacy? What needs to be improved in the interaction among participants, confederates, and experimenters? In addition, suggestions on how the data analysis and means of measure should be carried out will be given in this paper.