Worlds Apart: Inclusion benefits and barriers of Virtual

Personae

Rob PearceHigher Education Academy Engineering

Subject CentreSecond Life: Wess Wexler

rob@engsc.ac.uk Skype: robpearce5150

Virtual Persona

“[an avatar is] ‘an interactive, social representation of a user […] a social creature dancing on the border between fiction and fact” [Meadows, M. S, “I, Avatar” 2007]. “[avatars are] in large part the central artefacts through which people build not only social lives but identities.” [Taylor, T. L., Living Digitally, Embodiment in Virtual Worlds in The Social life of Avatars] “…but identity in virtual worlds, with no reliable visual clues and general lack of sensory experience, can be misleading and/or highly ambiguous”. [Peachey 2008]

Inclusion?

Definition: “a relation between two classes that exists when all members of the first are also members of the second”

Defining the immersive “X” factor

●Why is Second Life different from other electronic environments?

●Why is a 2D visualisation tool referred to as “3D”?

●Famous example: Virtual hallucinations (Yellowlees 2007) a virtual environment to replicate the experiences and world of a schizophrenia sufferer

…a continuum that "ranges from the most profoundly physically and mentally retarded person ... to the most able, highly intelligent person

with social impairment in its subtlest form as his only disability. It overlaps with learning disabilities and shades into eccentric normality."

- Lorna Wing

Autism II

●graphical representations of real people create a "comfort zone" that can coax users out of their shells and get them communicating with others.

Simon Bignell (Milton Broome)Derby Universitypsychology.derby.ac.uk/~simon/staff/simon_bignell.html

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+Inclusion: The Virtual Environment

●Not popular with students initially but this can improve.

●Levels the playing field for disabled people.

●Overseas students unfamiliar with cultural differences (Bignell 2007).

● Inherent playfulness of SL can be disconcerting and confusing. (Warburton 2008).

Allows safe social skills rehearsal. A chance to observe an isolated aspect of communication in order to understand a second language.

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+Inclusion: Communication

●Great leveller – the loudest voice cannot dominate plus the virtual buffer allows shy users to shine.

●Physical intimidation & long monologs are not an option!

● “Text chat” has its own language; familiarity & typing speed is a factor.

●Dominating personalities can feel lost.●Lack of non-verbal cues makes it difficult to

manage conversational threads.

Lack of complex linguistic & social-behavioural processing makes communication less effective than in the real world but could make it easier for those on the autistic spectrum.

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+Identity: Harmless deception or

deceptions that harm?●managing post-traumatic stress (Rizzo, 2006) “once-removed” identity helps in confronting past experiences.

●“Digital reputation” (Warburton 2008)

●Gender/age/race/profession/religion/time/appearance/motivation/sexuality/disability ambiguities.

“Proteus effect” (Yee and Bailenson, 2007). suggests that participants develop or emphasise certain characteristics dependent upon the appearance of their avatar.

So what can you do?

● Steve Warburton: 6 Barriers to Innovation in MUVE based teaching

● Set rules for acceptable appearance.● Don’t mislead - individuals construct new knowledge from their

experiences and where group interaction is key it must be authentic.

● Consider ethical arguments/clearance when employing “non-real” scenarios.

● Identity and communication ambiguities mean events in SL need to be more tightly managed than the playfulness of the medium would suggest.

● Choose activities that take advantage of the virtual–real buffer● “You cant please all of the people all of the time…” don’t use

virtual worlds exclusively – blend learning!

Nihil est… simul et inventum et perfectum.

(Nothing Is Simultaneously Both Created And Perfected)

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