The Effect of Gender Body-Swap Illusions on Working Memory and Stereotype Threat

The underrepresentation of women in technical and STEM fields is a well-known problem, and stereotype threatening situations have been linked to the inability to recruit and retain women into these fields. Virtual reality enables the unique ability to perform body-swap illusions, and research has sh...

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Vydáno v:IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics Ročník 24; číslo 4; s. 1604 - 1612
Hlavní autoři: Peck, Tabitha C., Doan, My, Bourne, Kimberly A., Good, Jessica J.
Médium: Journal Article
Jazyk:angličtina
Vydáno: United States IEEE 01.04.2018
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Témata:
Adolescent
Adult
Atmospheric measurements
Avatars
body-swap illusions
Computer Graphics
Electronic mail
Female
Gender
Gender aspects
Human behavior
Humans
Illusions
Impairment
Male
Memory
Memory, Short-Term - physiology
Particle measurements
stereotype threat
Stereotyping
Threats
virtual embodiment
Virtual environments
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy - methods
Women
working memory
Young Adult
ISSN:1077-2626, 1941-0506, 1941-0506
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Shrnutí:The underrepresentation of women in technical and STEM fields is a well-known problem, and stereotype threatening situations have been linked to the inability to recruit and retain women into these fields. Virtual reality enables the unique ability to perform body-swap illusions, and research has shown that these illusions can change participant behavior. Characteristically people take on the traits of the avatar they are embodying. We hypothesized that female participants embodying male avatars when a stereotype threat was made salient would demonstrate stereotype lift. We tested our hypothesis through a between-participants user study in an immersive virtual environment by measuring working memory. Our results support that stereotype threat can be induced in an immersive virtual environment, and that stereotype lift is possible with fully-immersive body-swap illusions. Additionally, our results suggest that participants in a gender-swapped avatar without an induced stereotype threat have significantly impaired working memory; however, this impairment is lifted when a threat is made salient. We discuss possible theories as to why a body-swap illusion from a female participant into a male avatar would only increase working memory impairment when not under threat, as well as applications and future research directions. Our results offer additional insight into understanding the cognitive effects of body-swap illusions, and provide evidence that virtual reality may be an applicable tool for decreasing the gender gap in technology.
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ISSN:1077-2626
1941-0506
1941-0506
DOI:10.1109/TVCG.2018.2793598