Self Representation in IVEs 1 Running head: VIRTUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SELF Self Representations in Immersive Virtual Environments

This experiment varied whether individuals interacted with virtual representations of themselves or virtual representations of others in an immersive virtual environment. In the self representation condition, half of the participants interacted with a self representation which bore photographic resemblance to them, whereas the other half interacted with a self representation that bore no resemblance to them. In the other representation condition, participants interacted with a representation of another individual. The experimental design was a 2 (participant gender: male vs. female) x 3 (agent identity: high similarity self representation vs. low similarity self representation vs. other representation). Overall, participants displayed more intimacy-consistent behaviors for representations of themselves than others. Implications of using immersive virtual environment technology for studying the self are discussed.