The Reliability and Validity of the Avatar Embodiment Questionnaire

The study of self-avatars in virtual and augmented reality research continues to be an important research area. These virtual self-avatars have been shown to improve user performance and to modify people’s behaviors through the Proteus effect. However, performance and behavior changes are impacted by how embodied one is in their self-avatar such that higher avatar embodiment improves performance and induces greater behavior changes. It has become increasingly important to be able to measure how embodied one is within their self-avatar to better investigate and understand the impact of avatar embodiment on users. Multiple questionnaires have been proposed and have demonstrated their validity. However no questionnaire has demonstrated reliability—the degree of agreement between repeated uses of the same measurement instrument over time. The reliability of a questionnaire is essential for within-participant studies where a single user’s embodiment level is assessed multiple times. In this paper we assess the reliability of the Avatar Embodiment Questionnaire (AEQ) proposed by Peck and Gonzalez-Franco with an undergraduate population (n=58) through 2-5 repeated exposures, each approximately two-weeks apart. Participants wore same or cross-gendered avatars for the duration of the experiment. The questionnaire results were assessed using three common reliability analyses. For participants in same-gendered avatars, the AEQ demonstrated acceptable or better reliability across all trials. For participants in cross-gendered avatars, the AEQ demonstrated questionable reliability for the initial trial and acceptable to excellent reliability for all other trials. Results support that the AEQ is a reliable measurement tool for assessing virtual embodiment. However, to produce reliable results, minor changes to experimental design should be considered when including avatars that are diversely different from the user.