ИСТИНА

In previous studies it has been shown that social interactions with avatars in virtual worlds are ruled by the same social norms as interactions in the real world (Yee et al., 2007). We studied participant’s ethnic attitudes during the interaction with avatars of different ethnic appearance. Three virtual scenes were constructed differed in ethnic appearance of avatars. Each scene represented a living room with a group of avatars that had the same or different ethnic appearances as the participant. Virtual scenes were presented using the CAVE virtual reality system. The participant’s task was to walk around each avatar in a group and remember all the details of its appearance. During the execution participant’s body and eye movements were recorded. Then participants answered the questions about details of avatar’s appearance and filled out questionnaires assessing their presence effect (IPQ) and ethnic attitudes (IAT). The results showed the shorter interpersonal distances and longer eye contact with avatars of the same ethnic appearance. It was also found that questionnaire’s scores were in good agreement with behavioral characteristics while performing the memory task. The study was funded by Russian Scientific Fund project № 15-18-00109.