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Slap Happy Study: 1st Person View Most Immersive

By pete_gallagher

Ever wonder why you might feel more immersed in a first-person perspective  videogame than in a similar third-person title? A study by European researchers might help to provide a little insight.

The study seemed to show that male subjects, outfitted with virtual reality goggles, reacted more strongly to their on-screen female avatar being slapped when in first-person mode than in a third-person view.

Live Science sums up the research, in which male subjects were simultaneously stroked on their shoulder in real life, while their on-screen avatar was being similarly stroked on-screen by a virtual mother. Suddenly the virtual mom slapped the on-screen avatar three times in the face, resulting in the male subjects experiencing 'rapid deceleration of their heart rates as a normal bodily response to a threat, because they reacted to the virtual slap as if it were real.'

The male participants did not exhibit the same results when taking part in a setup that utilized a third-person perspective.
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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on May 13, 2010 (boomark / email).