Bio-adaptive social VR to evoke affective interdependence - DYNECOM

The effects of bio-adaptation-based visual cues in conveying affective information was studied while conducting social meditation in a virtual reality (VR) environment. In a laboratory study, 22 dyads practiced a short duration, modified version of empathy-evoking compassion meditation. The immersive VR provided electroencephalography (EEG) -based real-time visual feedback, as changing color, on the user’s empathy-related brain activation; the breathing rate of the users was visualized as a movement cue. In addition, the synchronization of the feedback signals between the users was also visualized. Initial results suggest that the perceived affective interdependence, a component of social presence, was increased when both of the bio-adaptive visual feedbacks were presented to the users, compared to when there was no visual feedback. Also, the EEG-based visual feedback led to higher affective interdependence than the respiration based visual feedback. The findings suggest that affective contagion may occur by mediated adaptive cues that are based on physiological signals.