Walk this way: Evaluating the effect of perceived gender and attractiveness of motion on proximity in virtual reality

In human interaction, people will keep different distances from each other depending on their gender: males will stand further away from males and closer to females. However, many other variables influence proximity, such as appearance characteristics of the virtual character (e.g., attractiveness, etc.). Our study focuses on proximity to virtual walkers in virtual reality (VR), where gender could be inferred from motion only. We applied a set of male and female walking motions (motion capture) to a wooden mannequin, and displayed them to the participant embodied in a virtual avatar in VR. Participants used the controller to stop the approaching mannequin when they felt it was uncomfortably close to them. We hypothesized that proximity will be affected by the gender of the character, but also the gender of the participant. We additionally expected some motions to be rated more attractive than others and that attractive motions would reduce the proximity measure. Our results show support for the last two assumptions, but no difference in proximity was found according to the gender of the character’s motion. Our findings have implications for the design of virtual characters in interactive virtual environments.