Avatar face recognition and self-presence

The present study investigated how users felt a sense of self-presence when they were exposed to self-relevant avatars. Specifically, this study used both self-report and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures to explore how users would psychologically and physiologically respond to avatars wearing their own faces. Twenty-five undergraduate students participated in an EEG-based experiment that employed a 2 × 4 within-subjects factorial design. In the experiment, each of the participants was randomly exposed to eight combinations of two types of image presentations (photo image vs. avatar image) and four categories of human faces (self-faces vs. famous faces vs. ideal faces vs. unfamiliar faces). The self-report result data indicated that participants felt significantly higher senses of physical similarity to and identification with the characters when they were exposed to their own faces in the form of a photo image. The findings of the EEG data also demonstrated that participants paid much more attention to their own faces than to any other faces regardless of the image presentation type.