Understanding and Supporting Co-viewing Comedy in VR with Embodied Expressive Avatars

2025-05-26

AI Summary

Remote co-viewing video platforms lack embodied cues (e.g., facial expressions, gestures), undermining affective engagement and perceived co-presence. This study investigates, via a controlled experiment in VR, how laugh-embodied avatars—capable of visually representing laughter—affect shared comedic viewing experiences, comparing conditions with and without visible laughter cues. Employing VR headsets, real-time motion capture, and an expressive, controllable avatar system, we conducted a mixed-methods analysis integrating self-report questionnaires, behavioral coding, and semi-structured interviews. We first demonstrate that embodied laughter cues facilitate a shift from individual immersion to socially coordinated participation, significantly enhancing emotional contagion strength and co-presence. They also heighten metacognitive awareness of one’s own emotional expression and spontaneously elicit synchronized laughter rhythms and emergent co-viewing interaction norms. These findings reveal the critical regulatory role of embodied emotional cues in remote social media and uncover their underlying tension mechanisms between individual expression and collective coordination.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Intelligent Robots: Embodied AI
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Co-viewing videos with family and friends remotely has become prevalent with the support of communication channels such as text messaging or real-time voice chat. However, current co-viewing platforms often lack visible embodied cues, such as body movements and facial expressions. This absence can reduce emotional engagement and the sense of co-presence when people are watching together remotely. Although virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that allows individuals to participate in various social activities while embodied as avatars, we still do not fully understand how this embodiment in VR affects co-viewing experiences, particularly in terms of engagement, emotional contagion, and expressive norms. In a controlled experiment involving eight triads of three participants each (N=24), we compared the participants' perceptions and reactions while watching comedy in VR using embodied expressive avatars that displayed visible laughter cues. This was contrasted with a control condition where no such embodied expressions were presented. With a mixed-method analysis, we found that embodied laughter cues shifted participants' engagement from individual immersion to socially coordinated participation. Participants reported heightened self-awareness of emotional expression, greater emotional contagion, and the development of expressive norms surrounding co-viewers' laughter. The result highlighted the tension between individual engagement and interpersonal emotional accommodation when co-viewing with embodied expressive avatars.

Problem

• Investigates VR co-viewing with expressive avatars for emotional engagement
• Explores impact of embodied laughter cues on social coordination in VR
• Examines tension between individual immersion and emotional contagion in VR

Innovation

• Embodied expressive avatars in VR
• Visible laughter cues enhance engagement
• Mixed-method analysis of social coordination