Real-world Behavior And Biases Show Up In Virtual World
Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 11:28
in Mathematics & Economics
Americans are spending increasing amounts of time hanging around virtual worlds in the forms of cartoon-like avatars that change appearances according to users' wills, fly through floating cities in the clouds and teleport instantly to glowing crystal canyons and starlit desert landscapes. Simply fun and games? A new study shows that avatars responded to social cues -- and revealed racial biases -- in the same ways that people do in the real world.