How We See Changes How We Feel: Investigating the Effect of Visual Point-of-View on Decision-Making in VR Environments

Michael Yin, Robert Xiao

Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) can immerse users into engaging experiences, affording opportunities to study behaviour in simulated contexts such as decision-making processes. However, methodological research into designing meaningful VR experiences - experiences that promote appreciation and deeper understanding of a work - is still underdeveloped. In this two-part study, we investigate how visual point-of-view (POV) in VR impacts feelings of meaningfulness and empathy as well as objective decision-making processes. Our study revolves around a VR application that situates users in moral dilemmas from three different POVs. Data from the choices made is augmented with self-reported subjective data. We find that, from different POVs, users' subjective feelings do show change; users show greater empathy for virtual agents and have an increasingly meaningful experience from a first-person perspective, even if this is not always reflected in changes in their decisions. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings in the context of VR application design.