The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in interactive studies is becoming increasingly popular. Despite its popularity to use Virtual Characters (VC) instead of confederates in VR studies, the effect of...Show moreThe use of Virtual Reality (VR) in interactive studies is becoming increasingly popular. Despite its popularity to use Virtual Characters (VC) instead of confederates in VR studies, the effect of VCs on humans has not been sufficiently studied yet, especially regarding scratching behaviour. The present explores the effect of the presence or absence of a VC on humans’ scratching behaviour. There are two rationales behind the assumption that VCs affect scratching behaviour. The first is that scratching is shown more frequently under stress, but the presence of VCs can reduce stress. The second one is that participants want to adhere to social norms in front of a VC, which condemn scratching. For the present study, participants (n = 38) were immersed in a virtual environment using a Head-Mounted-Display. They had to describe itch-inducing pictures either while a VC was present or absent. The frequency and duration of the scratching behaviour of participants were recorded. Two two-sided paired t-tests were conducted to compare both scratch frequency and scratch duration in the VC present versus the VC absent condition. The findings show that the participants scratched less often and with a shorter duration when the VC was present compared to when the VC was absent, indicating that the presence of VCs can alter humans’ scratch behaviour. The results of this study can help to establish the use of VCs further and lay the foundation for a more in-depth investigation into scratch behaviour using virtual environments. However, more research is needed to investigate the underlying reasons for the observed behaviour.Show less
