Rabindra A. Ratan

Michigan State University | MSU · Department of Media and Information

In response to our study, the commentary by Infanti et al. (2024) raised critical points regarding (i) the conceptualization and utility of the user-avatar bond in addressing gaming disorder (GD) risk, and (ii) the optimization of supervised machine learning techniques applied to assess GD risk. To advance the scientific dialogue and progress in th...

Even as they become ubiquitous in everyday life, virtual meeting (VM) platforms (e.g., Zoom, Microsoft Teams) are fraught with user complaints ranging from technical issues like lagging video to “Zoom Fatigue” from long periods on camera (Bailenson 2021). By rushing to scale software distribution after COVID-19 lockdowns, providers fixated on desig...

Virtual economies with 3D assets have been studied for decades, often in the context of entertainment, but the concept of the metaverse as a workplace platform has only recently begun to take hold. This research addresses a gap in our understanding of how the enhanced ability for impression management in the metaverse workplace may relate to worker...

We investigate how gender-anonymous voice avatars influence women’s performance in online computing group work. Female participants worked with two male confederates. Voices were filtered according to four voice gender anonymity conditions: (1) All unmasked, (2) Male confederates masked, (3) Female participant masked, and (4) All masked. When only...

Research on pornography use has demonstrated an association with lower relationship satisfaction, greater rape-myth acceptance (RMA), and problematic pornography use. Increasingly immersive media technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), are transforming the way people consume and are potentially influenced by pornography. Spatial and social pres...

Female gamers are often exposed to not only general harassment but also sexual harassment during online multiplayer games. Although studies have investigated the effects of harassment and associated coping strategies on the mental health of females within the workplace, comparable studies have not been conducted within online gaming environments. T...

The present study examines why some studies of the Proteus effect, the phenomenon that people tend to conform behaviorally and attitudinally to their avatars' identity characteristics, facilitate the phenomenon more effectively than others. A previous meta-analysis of the Proteus effect (Ratan et al., 2020a) failed to examine potentially notable mo...

BACKGROUND Interprofessional communication is needed to enhance the early recognition and management of patients with sepsis. Preparing medical and nursing students using virtual reality simulation has been shown to be an effective learning approach for sepsis team training. However, its scalability is constrained by unequal cohort sizes between me...

Background Interprofessional communication is needed to enhance the early recognition and management of patients with sepsis. Preparing medical and nursing students using virtual reality simulation has been shown to be an effective learning approach for sepsis team training. However, its scalability is constrained by unequal cohort sizes between me...

Background: Virtual reality simulations are shown to be an effective approach for interprofessional nurse-physician communication training. However, its scalability is constrained by unequal medical-nursing cohort size, rendering a great challenge for all nursing students to form an interprofessional team with medical students. With the evolution...

Pornography use is multidimensional, yet most studies of the topic use variable-oriented methods (e.g., frequency of use) that reduce the experience to a single dimension. In this study, we sought to identify different multidimensional patterns of pornography genre preferences among a sample of women (n = 206) and examine how those patterns are dif...

From the Virtual Boy (Boyer 2009) to the original Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift (Wingfield 2013), Virtual Reality (VR) has a long association with games. However, while games are still VR’s dominant genre (Foxman et al. 2022) and integral to content creation (Evans 2018), much of VR’s marketing and public discourse has downplayed games i...

Virtual reality (VR) is pushing the technological and cultural limits of digital games. For instance, engineers are working with high-end controllers, hand-tracking, and display technology to augment the VR experience. VR has targeted remote work and the metaverse. VR has many skeptics. Cix Liv (2021), a VR pioneer, stated, “Sorry to my VR friends....

Students’ sense of social presence in online classes potentially contributes to their learning experiences. This study examines the relationship between online class format (e.g., synchronous), social presence, active learning activities (e.g., open-ended real-time polling), and students’ subjective course gains (e.g., perceived learning). Findings...

This study examined the effects of customization and intuitiveness of control on the feeling of identification and embodiment, and the actual running performance of game players after playing a digital runner game developed for this research. A 2 (avatar design: customized vs. not customized) × 2 (avatar controls: intuitive vs. not intuitive) withi...

Avatar customization is known to positively affect crucial outcomes in numerous domains. However, it is unknown whether audial customization can confer the same benefits as visual customization. We conducted a preregistered 2 x 2 (visual choice vs. visual assignment x audial choice vs. audial assignment) study in a Java programming game. Participan...

Avatar customization is known to positively affect crucial outcomes in numerous domains. However, it is unknown whether audial customization can confer the same benefits as visual customization. We conducted a preregistered 2 x 2 (visual choice vs. visual assignment x audial choice vs. audial assignment) study in a Java programming game. Participan...

When designed well, serious games can support effective learning. This study used the communication mediation model to examine the process and outcomes of playing serious games, in this case, the science-themed game, Kerbal Space Program. During a 4-h research session, 241 undergraduate students played through the game's tutorial missions and compl...

Viewing self-video during videoconferences potentially causes negative self-focused attention that contributes to virtual meeting (VM) or "Zoom" fatigue. The present research examines this proposition, focusing on facial dissatisfaction-feeling unhappy about one's own facial appearance-as a potential psychological mechanism of VM fatigue. A study o...

Although virtual reality (VR) shares common features with video games, it offers different experiences for users based on the mediums unique affordances. Still, there is no cohesive classification system for commercial VR applications. To account for this deficiency, the paper presents an exploratory comparative analysis of titles from the Steam di...

Avatar identification is one of the most promising research areas in games user research. Greater identification with one's avatar has been associated with improved outcomes in the domains of health, entertainment, and education. However, existing studies have focused almost exclusively on the visual appearance of avatars. Yet audio is known to inf...

This study examines the gender and country differences with respect to a range of gaming motivations (e.g., social, performance, habit) and game genre choices (e.g., action, sports, casual). Surveys were conducted on 634 university students from Singapore, Germany and the US. Overall, the findings suggest that many game motivations and genre choice...

This study examined the relationship between stereotype threat, game modality (augmented reality, virtual reality), and stereotypic beliefs about STEM fields. Results of a 2 [modality] x 2 [stereotype threat] factorial, between-subjects experiment with women participants ( N = 64) suggest that gender stereotypes primed before playing the STEM game...

Scholars have not reached an agreement on a theoretical foundation that underlies the psychological effects of avatar use on users. One group of scholars focuses on the perceptual nature of avatar use, proposing that perceiving the self-being represented by a virtual representation leads to the effects (i.e., Proteus effect). Another group suggests...

Exergames offer both enactive and vicarious learning through the graphical representations of the self and virtual coach. This study established and tested a model of exergame motivation with Social Cognitive Theory as the foundation. A 2 (User Avatar: Absent versus Present) × 2 (Virtual Coach: Absent versus Present) between-subjects experiment was...

The present research examines how perceptions of e-scooter mobile apps (i.e., a communication technology) influence intent to use e-scooters (i.e., a transportation technology) while considering other perceptions specific to e-scooters (ease of use, usefulness, safety, environmental impact, and enjoyment), context of use (geographic landscape), and...

Even though virtual reality (VR) shares features with video games, it offers a wider range of experiences. There is currently no cohesive classification for commercial VR offerings. As a first step to account for this deficiency, the work in progress considers the relationship between game genres and users' ratings and downloads of VR experiences....

This study examines gaming motivations for two different genres of multiplayer games—casual social network games (SNGs) and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games—and tests for gender differences in motivation after considering genre. We conducted a survey of 515 SNG players and 505 MMO players in the U.S. through Mechanical Turk, asking about th...

In this article we describe Hack.VR, an object-oriented programming game in virtual reality. Hack.VR uses a VR programming language in which nodes represent functions and node connections represent data flow. Using this programming framework, players reprogram VR objects such as elevators, robots, and switches. Hack.VR has been designed to be highl...

The present research addresses the stereotype that women and girls lack the ability to succeed compared to men and boys in video games. Previous lab-based research has found that playing spatial-action video games potentially reduces the gender gap in spatial-thinking skills, while previous field studies of less spatially oriented online games have...

The connection between video games and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has become a key focus for education and game scholars alike. While games may have the power to bring more students toward STEM fields, gender stereotypes about gaming ability may hinder this potential. To examine this issue, two studies were cond...

In the present study, we examine the effect of plausibility violations in a virtual environment (VE) on spatial presence. After reviewing research on the association between plausibility and spatial presence, we present a dual-systems approach to understanding the effect of plausibility (or violations thereof) on spatial presence. We conceptualize...

Toxic behaviors are pervasive in online games and can be harmful to building a positive online environment. Guided by the social identity model of deindividuation, this study represents one of the first efforts to examine the antecedents of toxicity in team-based online games using longitudinal behavioral data. It fills two important gaps in existi...

The computers are social actors framework (CASA), derived from the media equation, explains how people communicate with media and machines demonstrating social potential. Many studies have challenged CASA, yet it has not been revised. We argue that CASA needs to be expanded because people have changed, technologies have changed, and the way people...

This chapter focuses on the influence of avatar use and interaction with agents or virtual characters on users' health behaviors and attitudes. Avatar and agent-based interactions are becoming increasingly common. For instance, people play video games on phones, consoles, and computers that depict digital characters onscreen and also have access to...

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has become an essential part of school curricula and is crucial to filling future jobs, so research examining ways to increase STEM motivations is essential. While an abundance of research has examined STEM in relation to traditional media, research examining the impact of digital l...

This article examines how the embodied experience of contemporary avatar use overlaps with 19th-century American sentimental literature and cultural assumptions about gender and readerly identification in that period. Drawing on recent quantitative and qualitative research on avatar use and ongoing scholarship on nineteenth-century literature, we o...

Over a decade of research on the Proteus effect in numerous contexts suggests that people conform in behavior and attitudes to their avatars’ characteristics. In order to provide clarity about the reliability and size of the Proteus effect, a meta-analysis was conducted with 46 quantitative experimental studies in which avatars with specific charac...

The present research explores how autonomous vehicle voice agent (AVVA) design influences autonomous vehicle passenger (AVP) intentions to adopt autonomous vehicles. An online experiment (N = 158) examined the role of gender stereotypes in response to an AVVA with respect to the technology acceptance model. The findings indicate that characteristic...

This article examines avatar gender choice within a competitive context in which avatar gender is not equivalent across functions. In data from the game League of Legends (n = 15,392) reflecting >5 million avatar gender choices, women were found to have stronger preferences for avatar gender consistency than men. Furthermore, women tended to choose...

The propagation of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications that leverage smartphone technology has increased along with the ubiquity of smartphone adoption. Although AR and VR technologies have been widely utilized in the educational domain, there remains a dearth of empirical research examining the differences in educational i...

This article argues that automobiles can be understood as avatars, or avacars, given the inclusive definition of avatars as mediated (not necessarily digital) representations of human users that facilitate interaction with other users, entities, or environments. Building on an understanding of user-avatar relationships, the article argues that auto...

Trust toward outgroup members is generally lower than it is toward ingroup members. Behavioral synchrony with virtual outgroup characters has been identified as a means of improving attitudes toward racial outgroup members, but this effect has not been tested for outgroup trust. We tested the effect of synchrony with an ingroup/outgroup virtual age...

Researchers interested in motives for playing digital games can draw on a variety of measurement instruments. When the aim is to compare between groups, however, instruments need to show certain psychometric properties. Specifically, an instrument needs to be invariant. Without such properties, comparisons between groups run the danger of yielding...

Drawing on the self-concept activation and goal-priming account of the priming effect, this study examined how self-concept—i.e., ideal self, ought self, and actual self—can be harnessed as a model for avatar customization in digital games to promote healthy-eating behavior. Female participants (N = 133) customized an avatar in a digital game to re...

Given the diversity and complexity of education game mechanisms and topics, this article contributes to a theoretical understanding of how game mechanisms “map” to educational topics through inquiry-based learning. Namely, the article examines the presence of evolution through natural selection (ENS) in digital games. ENS is a fundamentally importa...

The interaction between drivers and their cars will change significantly with the introduction of autonomous vehicles. The driver's role will shift towards a supervisory control of their autonomous vehicle. The eventual relief from the driving task enables a complete new area of research and practice in human-computer interaction and interaction de...

Prior research on digital games illustrates a perceived gender gap in participation and performance, suggesting men as playing more and better than women. This article challenges the gender gap using longitudinal behavioral data of men and women in 2 MMOs in the United States and China. Results show that women advance at least as fast as men do in...

This study examined parental mediation of children’s video game play in an Internet survey of 433 parents of children aged 5 to 18 years. We assessed the valence of active mediation (i.e., positive, negative, neutral) and the relationship between parental involvement and mediation techniques. Furthermore, we explored whether parental mediation was...

Grouping game players based on their online behaviors has attracted a lot of attention recently. However, due to the huge volume and extreme complexity in online game data collections, grouping players is a challenging task. This study has applied parallelized K-Means on Gordon, a supercomputer hosted at San Diego Supercomputer Center, to meet the...

Autonomous vehicles have gained attention recently since research organizations and companies have presented (semi-) autonomous vehicles driving in public traffic. This workshop covers the crossover between driving/riding in (semi-) autonomous vehicles and user experience (UX) research. The focus lies in an in-depth discussion on challenges and pot...

This study highlights the importance of considering gender and offline cultural context when working in virtual teams. To this end, we examine gender differences in performance and participation within virtual teams in a popular online game, drawing from behavioral game data from game servers in nine countries, each representing a distinct region o...

The present research examines the processes involved in the psychological and behavioral effects of avatar use. We offer and explore a new concept, avatar self-relevance, which potentially moderates avatar use effects and thus may help explain why such effects are augmented by using (compared with viewing) an avatar. Results from an experimental st...

Although video gaming is becoming a more widespread activity beyond its historically core demographic of young males, participation in competitive gaming remains largely male dominated. Addressing this issue, this research examines the experience of female players in one of the worlds most popular games, League of Legends. Two studies - one qualita...

This research explores ebook use among undergraduate students, drawing from the technology acceptance model (TAM) to examine ebook usage and adoption. Undergraduates enrolled in a large course at a mid-western university in the United States completed surveys at the beginning and the end of the semester. A great amount of variance was found in eboo...

Autonomous Driving has gained attention from academia and industry over the last decades. Research organizations and companies have developed (semi-) autonomous vehicles and first in-situ studies have been conducted. This workshop follows last year's first AUI workshop on user experience (UX) and autonomous driving (AD). We would like to widen the...

Information and communication technologies are blurring the boundaries between work and play. We present the first empirical investigation of gender gaps in virtual game economies. Analyzing big data sets from two major game economies, we find that player gender and character gender influence virtual wealth in different ways in different games. We...

What in-game attributes predict players’ offline gender? Our research addresses this question using behavioral logs of over 4,000 EverQuest II players. The analysis compares four variable sets with multiple combinations of character types (avatar characteristics or gameplay behaviors; primary or nonprimary character), three server types within the...

Due to the huge volume and extreme complexity in online game data collections, selecting essential features for the analysis of massive game logs is not only necessary, but also challenging. This study develops and implements a new XSEDE-enabled tool, FeatureSelector, which uses the parallel processing techniques on high performance computers to pe...

Using Cognitive Dissonance and Balance Theory, this study investigates factors that predict how and why MMO players inaccurately report their game playing time. It was hypothesized that players belonging to categories other than the stereotypical game player (e.g. younger, less educated, male) would be likely to underreport playing time. It was als...

Virtual environments facilitate group collaboration through avatars. While many studies have examined the effects of avatar attributes on users' behaviors and attitudes, few have explicitly tested how elements of avatar design relate to group collaboration satisfaction. The present study fills this gap using data from a field study with student gro...

There is currently a need for a standardized concept that describes how relationships between the self and virtual self-representations operate across virtual contexts. The framework of self-presence fulfills this need by describing how people connect to their virtual self-representations on three distinct levels of self (body, emotion, identity)....

This study examines how trust is related to online social institutions, self-disclosure, mode of communication, and message privacy in a popular MMOG, Everquest II. The findings, based on survey and behavioral data from over 3,500 players, illustrate how MMOGs may support trust development. Trust was higher within closer social circles: trust was h...

The concept of self-presence provides a framework for understanding how people connect to virtual self-representations on three distinct levels (body, emotions, and identity). The present study aims to build on previous support for the reliability and construct validity of this framework. Participants (N=81) who used avatars in a semester-long coll...

The 150 top-selling video games sold in the U.S. across nine platforms were content analyzed to study representations of female bodies. All human females in the games were captured via screenshot and body parts measured. These measurements were then compared to actual anthropometric data drawn from a representative sample of 3,000 American women. T...

This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world — the first such data set provided to outside researchers — is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in t...