The Influence of Visual Appearance of User´s Avatar on the Manipulation of Objects in Virtual Environments

This paper describes an experiment conducted to study the influence of visual appearance of user´s avatar (or 3D cursor) on the manipulation of virtual objects in virtual environments (VE). Participants were asked to pick up a virtual cube and place it at a random location in a VE. We found that one visual property of the avatar (the presence or absence of a directional cue) could influence the way participants picked up the cube in the VE. When using an avatar or a 3D cursor with a strong directional cue (e.g., arrows pointing to the left or right), participants generally picked up the cube by a specific side (e.g., right or left side). When using 3D cursors with no main directional cue, participants more frequently picked up the virtual cube by its front or top