Social Interactions in Virtual Reality: What Cues Do People Use Most and How

Jingchao Fang, Victoria Chang, Ge Gao, Hao-Chuan Wang

Abstract: Social virtual reality (VR) has become increasingly popular. People today can leverage VR to meet and interact with others, especially when face-to-face (F2F) social events are not as practical. While strategies and cues being used in F2F interactions have been previously studied in CSCW, it remains unclear how people use various cues to interact with others in VR-based events, and whether the usage of different cues in such VR events differs from F2F interactions. To start addressing these questions, we conducted an online survey study, inviting VR event attendees to recall their recent social interaction experiences and cues usage in initiating, maintaining, and finishing interactions with event co-attendees in VR and F2F situations respectively (N=51). Results from the survey revealed differential cues usage in VR-based and in F2F interactions, which could shed light on the design of VR tools toward supporting online social events.