Tech | November 11, 2009 | 126 comments

About your avatar

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pjacobs51
Although often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one's self-representation, or avatar, in a virtual environment can affect the user's thoughts, according to research by a University of Texas at Austin communication professor.

In the first study to use avatars to prime negative responses in a desktop virtual setting, Jorge Peña, assistant professor in the College of Communication, demonstrated that the subtext of an avatar's appearance can simultaneously prime negative (or anti-social) thoughts and inhibit positive (or pro-social) thoughts inconsistent with the avatar's appearance. All of this while study participants remained unaware they had been primed. The study, co-written with Cornell University Professor Jeffrey T. Hancock and University of Texas at Austin graduate student Nicholas A. Merola, appears in the December 2009 issue of Communication Research.

In two separate experiments, research participants were randomly assigned a dark- or white-cloaked avatar, or to avatars wearing physician or Ku Klux Klan-like uniforms or a transparent avatar. The participants were assigned tasks including writing a story about a picture, or playing a video game on a virtual team and then coming to consensus on how to deal with infractions.

Consistently, participants represented by an avatar in a dark cloak or a KKK-like uniform demonstrated negative or anti-social behavior in team situations and in individual writing assignments.

Previous studies have demonstrated these uniform types to have negative effects on people's behaviors in face-to-face interactions. For example, Cornell researchers Mark Frank and Tom Gilovich showed that dark uniforms influence professional sports teams to play more aggressively on the playing field and in the laboratory. Peña's research demonstrates how these effects operate in desktop-based video games, and sheds light on the automatic cognitive processes that explain this effect.

"When you step into a virtual environment, you can potentially become 'Mario' or whatever other character you are portraying," said Peña, who studies how humans think, behave and feel online. "Oftentimes, the connotations of our own virtual character will subtly remind us of common stereotypes, such as 'bad guys wear black or dress up in hooded robes.' This association may surreptitiously steer users to think and behave more antisocially, but also inhibit more pro-social thoughts and responses in a virtual environment."

According to Peña, these findings can be particularly useful to video game and combat simulation developers.

"By manipulating the appearance of the avatar, you can augment the probability of people thinking and behaving in predictable ways without raising suspicion," said Peña. "Thus, you can automatically make a virtual encounter more competitive or cooperative by simply changing the connotations of one's avatar."

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110211037.htm
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126 comments // About your avatar

  • jfill
  • fernweher
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  
    • Image

    • The 1968 Olympic Games.

      Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a statement about civil rights and freedom on the medal stand and holding up their fists in a Black Power salute.

      I thought it was a powerful image about justice and equality, and used it as an avatar.

    • 2 years ago
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • @presscore, talk about the Masons and the History Channel. Well one thing you haven't mentioned is that the origin of the Masons is Egypt. In fact most of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic belief systems originated in Egypt. The Masons were the Hebrews who built many of the huge structures there, including pyramids. They made the bricks and hauled the stones - stone masons. Their symbol is the tools of Masonry. Talk about avatars, theirs really nails their origins.

      They practice a mystery religion with secret rituals full of symbols to be found embedded in American institutions and infrastructure.

    • 2 years ago
  • iammyfathersson
  • TheBrownKid
  • ii386
    • 0
      ii386  

    • My icon is....a blow up doll...not the kind you have sex with though... Doesn't really have any significance and I am not a female. I only picked it because she was hilarious was a good friend on a long road trip...she deflated soon afterwards.

    • 2 years ago
  • eldamon
  • remanns
  • eldamon
  • remanns
  • zphoenixdownz
  • Skyscraper08
  • Incredulous
  • zphoenixdownz
  • remanns
    • 0
      remanns  

    • I think of mine as a simple-signature/watermark/wax seal; the emblematic equivalent of putting initials to a painting a poem, a ceramic bowl, or the inside of some tooled leather. The emphasis is more on a "more like this or that other stuff posted" confession/expression of guilt than a whoswho photo. ( But then, I dont even care much for facebook...)

    • 2 years ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • remanns:

      I think your avatar icon is cool. It reminds me of the type of immage they used on the WB animated series the Justice League from the late 90s into the early millenium years of this decade. I still haven't come across an avatar icon immage that I could stick with yet. When I do though, you can be sure I'll post it.

    • 2 years ago
  • ianakaeeen
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • ianakaeeen:

      That appears to be of Masonic origin. Did you know that the History channel documentaries have traced the USA's founding fathers/free masons all the way back to the Knights Templar of Europe originaly ?. There's a church in Scotland which has masonry symbols that parrarel both the secret order of free masons and the Knights Templar as having common origins.

    • 2 years ago
  • WakeUpPeople
  • ianakaeeen
  • WakeUpPeople
  • antoine_99
  • remanns
  • alexandrek
  • remanns
    • 0
      remanns  
    • alexandrek:

      WOW! Lil cherubs! I thought you were a cloud! ( then I clicked to "you" and it was big enough to see ) Some of these things just don't translate to the reduced scale well. From now on,....Im a clicken on em when in doubt!

    • 2 years ago
  • MizPiz
  • SparkShark16
  • MizPiz
    • 0
      MizPiz  

    • I honestly still have yet to find a picture that can accuratly describe me, but I usually use this one because it's pretty personal to me.

    • 2 years ago
  • EmperorThan
    • 0
      EmperorThan  

    • Hey... THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JAMES CAMERON'S AVATAR!!!!

      False alarm everyone! Just some poser lying about an early DVD rip or something. Go back to whatever you were doing.

    • 2 years ago
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  

    • **Frowns**

      Nobody likes my avatar...

      ...Except for me.

      I like Nettle's and JackHerer's avatars, because Death Note kicks ass and because I like cannabis.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nettle
  • antoine_99
  • pjacobs51
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  
    • Image
    • lifestudentno83:

      The 1968 Olympic Games.

      Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a statement about civil rights and freedom on the medal stand and holding up their fists in a Black Power salute.

      I thought it was a powerful image about justice and equality, and used it as an avatar.

    • 2 years ago
  • hack26
  • neocongo
    • 0
      neocongo  

    • I like TravG73's (guy with squirrel) because if you look at his videos, it's a pretty kick ass squirrel, and Trav seems pretty cool too.

    • 2 years ago
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • Oh and Stopnoise, his icon is self descriptive, it goes with his main point of activism, which is to make people aware of acoustic pollution.

    • 2 years ago
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • I like JanforGore's and Vierotchka's Avatars, They both have been around for a long time. Vierotchka hasn't changed hers I don't think, but Jan did. Her's used to be a couple other things. But this one she has been using for a while really intrigues me.

      Vierotchka's avatar reminds me of Switzerland and a princess or a courtier.

      My avatar is my real face and I like to put that out there because I am that I am; me.

    • 2 years ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • jubal:

      When I was but a lad, the popular animated character of the day for us kids then, was Popeye, the sailor. (Robin Williams stared in the 1980 movie with Ray Walston and Shely Duval-surpringly good actualy). Popeye had a stock standard phrase that your comment harkens back to. " I yam what I yam, and that's alls what I yam., I'm Popeye the sailor man Toot Toot !!! He would use his corncob pipe much like a train whould use its steam whistle to emphasize his declaration of identity. Though it might sound hokey in this day and age, since we're about to eat yams for the feast
      day of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be appropriate to thank you for all your solid input . And to throw in a smidgeon of humor too.

    • 2 years ago
  • jubal
  • JanforGore
  • LowShred
    • 0
      LowShred  

    • Haha, this is pretty accurate. I enjoy drinking, and ironically, I don't remember my picture that is my avatar being taken. I approve.

    • 2 years ago
  • 2muchinfo
  • Nettle
  • 2muchinfo
  • Nettle
    • 0
      Nettle  
    • 2muchinfo:

      That's cuz I've had too many people compliment me on it, I think it fits me well and so on blah blah blah. And most people keep their pics the same to lessen confusion. Or they're lazy.

      I want to see your face if nothing else.

    • 2 years ago
  • 2muchinfo
  • Nettle
  • tangibleparadox
  • 2muchinfo
  • Jonf119
  • pjacobs51
  • kennymotown
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  
    • Image

    • The Borg Queen is Star Trek geek chic.

      For those of you who don't know, 'Unimatrix0' is a kind of borg heaven, where borgs go when they dream, a place where they are no longer drones, but self actualized individuals.

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
  • kennymotown
  • sydney327
    • 0
      sydney327  

    • This is probably connected to the real world. People whose primary everyday wear is black tend to be people in subcultures that are known to be rather antisocial - and those whose primary colors are bright tend to seem happier. "I don't wear black because I'm emo - I'm emo because I wear black!"

    • 2 years ago
  • tangibleparadox
  • dalistuff
  • DeliaTheArtist
  • pjacobs51
  • metalcookiesxy70
  • DeliaTheArtist
  • TheEmpireGuy
  • littleredmachine
  • metalcookiesxy70
  • pjacobs51
  • Nettle
  • ocanada
  • lifestudentno83
  • MizPiz
  • bailey78
  • Tygerr
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  

    • I dig pjacobs 51's avatar because it reminds me of the original early 1960s intro into the Outer Limits TV series. That pioneering sci fi series was one of the " big 3 " which started in the mid 1950s with World Vision's One Step Beyond, then progressed to Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, and culminated with the Outer Limits. All using black & white photography. The Twilight Zone has been such a smash hit, it was redone in 1986 in color, and again more recently with Forrest Whitacre as narrator. But the Outer Limits has only been redone once in color. It's a guaranteed mindblower too, with it's episodes running from 1995 through the early years of the millenium. And they kept the original intro. "Please do not adjust your TV screen. We are now in control of all you see, We can adjust the verticle. Or the horizontal. We can magnify all you see to deluge you with a thousand immages, or reduce it to only one of crystal clarity. So sit back and relax as we take you from the innermost recesses of the human mind to- the Outer Limits. Please stand by... " That little core in the center of his avatar is a dead giveaway that the TV was invented to accomplish mass hypnosis and social controll. The first TV broadcast was of a baseball game in 1939 before WW2 broke out. George Orwell's novel 1984 was published in 1943. My generation was the 1st TV generation. My college degree is in Psychology, so I've had a looong time to study its effects on brainwashing people to mind control them to repeat like parrots anything a manipulative announcer wants them to echo. Like that Roddy Piper movie of the late 1980s, if you could computer filter each second of digital TV, like Cloe in the Watchtower of the Justice League from Smallville,.and expand it to 24 frames to consciously witness what your unconscious mind can subliminaly perceive, you'd probably see Corporate messages like: " buy more stuff as fast as you can" , and "waste all you don't immediately use" followed by "CONSUME". Unlike Piper's movie "They live" those subliminal messages aren't likely as far out as aliens from another Galaxy programing humans. But the Corporate TV takeover of the American way of life is as alien to it as the founding fathers designed the USA to be. Connipae and White Noise have delivered documented facts supporting my understanding of the pattern of Corporate TV's cultural sunami effects on our way of thinking. Being a Psyche student, I know better than to allow myself to be mind controlled by gredo clowns. I suscribe to echostar(Dish) satellite TV. I mostly turn on the TV to listen to satelite radio. So I will always have the last laugh on Big Brother. Also from 1939. (Pay no attention to the man behind the screen. I'm still the great and powerful Wizzard of Oz !!! ) Suuuure he is. As they used to say in the 1930s "theater of the mind" serial radio plays:" Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men ? " , "The Shadow knows" (The Shadow, as a crime fighter, possessed the power to cloud people's minds through hypnosis to make himself invisible so that he could function as a noir detective).

    • 2 years ago
  • Glock_Gurl
  • pjacobs51
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • PressCore:

      Well I could lie and say that, like the Camera Obscura Observatory on Pike's Peak in Colorado, I'm the all seeing eye with a 360 degree panoramic view .(That was actualy the basis for one of Rod Serling's Night Gallery episodes). Truth is never as interesting as fiction, hence the human condition in a nutshell as Mark Twain might say. Or I can be truthful and say that it's likely because I have a photographic memory. I watched the very first episode of the original black & white Outer Limits, "Galaxy Being" and was so imprinted on the intro that I recognized your avatar as being indistinguishable from the immage I saw on my screen (that they realy were controling.) The 1st episode was such a mindblower, that I was a faithful fan of all the remaining episodes, and it's color sequel series.

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  
    • PressCore:

      I remember watching that too, on the family TV, a 19 inch bw that sat on top of the old TV that no longer worked. So you must be about my age or older. Man how time flies!!!

      They've been trying to "control" us since the 50s, when TVs started entering the home. But like yourself, after watching the The Outer Limits "intro" so long ago, have realized this since the beginning.

      I guess they let that one slip.

    • 2 years ago
  • remanns
  • bailey78
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • Image

    • Current was the first place I used an avatar. I decided to use a picture, I captured at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The sun light was shining through the trees and appeared to be causing a ripple. I generally try to shine a light on cannabis facts, hoping to cause a ripple, leading to a wave.

      When I first started trying to make a difference, I used the pen name 'One Lonely Voice Speaking for Millions'. Here I am all these many years later and still trying. Thanks to sites like current.com and HuffingtonPost I'm not so lonely any more. Others are joining the conversation daily and I 'hope' we are making a difference.

    • 2 years ago
  • Glock_Gurl
  • Conniepae
  • TE1091
    • 0
      TE1091  

    • I once heard that a picture may contain up to 1,000 words to describe it. I guess it applies to an avatar it self.

    • 2 years ago
  • Glock_Gurl
  • drewsuf721
    • 0
      drewsuf721  

    • What about a simple picture of yourself? Would that be too narcissistic, not imaginative or representative of our power animal? Ha.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sam_the_Wizer
  • evilliberalbastard
  • lordsbassman
  • bryterjonas
  • idealist
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • bryterjonas:

      Bullseye. And it doesn't hurt the cause to include a little humor too. As Groucho Marx might say: Go ahead and give them a piece of your mind. Just don't have a lobotomy to do it. We don't all work in distribution.

    • 2 years ago
  • sicksadworld
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  
    • Image

    • I like the WhiteNoise avatar. If anyone is going to upend the government he's going to have that "Billy Jack" look, like JFWilliam.

    • 2 years ago
  • kennymotown
  • pjacobs51
  • JulianCommongold
    • 0
      JulianCommongold  

    • Not sure why I chose an avatar with the words "stop saying words" on it.
      Especially since this is a site devoted to saying words....

      hm

      something subliminal?

    • 2 years ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • Image
    • JulianCommongold:

      I can relate to your idea. If I understand your thought, which precedes your idea, the notion of "saying words" means the sayer repeats others' thoughts without first understanding them fully. To understand thoughts fully will yield the idea, logicaly.
      Adequate communication involves lots of brain activity from many areas. If you see the person you're speaking to, you can sense the brightness emanating from their eyes. And you don't need to be in their presence to sense that. Since to be human means that all people have the ability to understand what it means to connect with the humanity of others, our minds can sense that brightness. Yet "saying words" involves so little brain activity that it's like the hypnotized, zombified, repeating others' propaganda to another person. TV was envisioned as a method of educating, but it's mostly become a commercial tool for Corporate marketing based on mind control of the masses. The more they watch it, the less they see it. The more they listen to it, the less the hear it. The couch potatoes are being dumbed down. Hence as George Orwell put a subtle twist on the word doubletalk to coin the phrase double speak, then yes there's a subliminal message intended for the unconscious mind which is different than the one you see & hear. The more people watch it, the more it subtracts from their mindfulness. More is less, as Orwell said. If you read the Current.com news articles from the U.K., they're realy going overboard
      and destroying their way of life by embracing that paranoia across the pond.

    • 2 years ago
  • xiola
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