Social presence in mixed agency interactions

Abstract

In this paper, we present the preliminary results of an ongoing study exploring how mixed-agency teams influence feelings of social presence. Participants worked with a team composed of either two virtual humans or a team composed of one virtual human and one real human. We found that while the presence of a human teammate did not affect overall feelings of social presence, the presence of a human teammate did appear to strengthen participants' perceptions that their virtual teammates were not real.