Streuber, StephanRosa, Stephan de laTrutoiu, LauraBülthoff, Heinrich H.Mohler, Betty J.P. Alliez and M. Magnor2015-07-092015-07-092009https://doi.org/10.2312/egs.20091042A plausible assumption is that self-avatars increase the realism of immersive virtual environments (VEs), because self-avatars provide the user with a visual representation of his/her own body. Consequently having a self-avatar might lead to more realistic human behavior in VEs. To test this hypothesis we compared human behavior in VE with and without providing knowledge about a self-avatar with real human behavior in real-space. This comparison was made for three tasks: a locomotion task (moving through the content of the VE), an object interaction task (interacting with the content of the VE), and a social interaction task (interacting with other social entities within the VE). Surprisingly, we did not find effects of a self-avatar exposure on any of these tasks. However, participant s VE and real world behavior differed significantly. These results challenge the claim that knowledge about the self-avatar substantially influences natural human behavior in immersive VEs.10.2312/egs.2009104233-36