Investigating the Effects of Leading and Following Behaviors of Virtual Humans in Collaborative Fine Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality

We examined the effects on users during collaboration with two types of virtual human (VH) agents in object transportation in an immersive virtual environment or virtual reality (VR). The two types of virtual humans we examined are leader and follower agents. The goal of the users is to interact with the agents using natural language and carry objects from initial locations to destinations. In each trial, the follower agent follows a user’s instructions to perform actions to manipulate the object. The leader agent determines the appropriate actions that the agent and the user should perform. We developed a system which enabled users and virtual agents to carry objects in an intuitive manner. We conducted a within-subjects study to evaluate the user behaviors under two conditions: (LVH) interaction with a leader virtual human and (FVH) interaction with a follower virtual human. We found that the participants in LVH required a higher workload than that in FVH. However, the users’ experiences, game experiences, and users’ impressions between the two conditions were not significantly different.