Virtual Embodiment of White People in a Black Virtual Body Leads to a Sustained Reduction in Their Implicit Racial Bias

By Domna Banakou, Parasuram D. Hanumanthu, Mel Slater. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2016

425 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Virtual reality can be used to visually substitute a person's body by a life-sized virtual one. Such embodiment results in a perceptual illusion of body ownership over the virtual body (VB). Previous research has shown that the form of the VB can influence implicit attitudes. In particular, embodying White people in a Black virtual body is associated with an immediate decrease in their implicit racial bias against Black people. We tested whether the reduction in implicit bias lasts for at least 1 week and whether it is enhanced by multiple exposures. Two experiments were carried out with a total of 90 female participants where the virtual body was either Black or White. Participants were required to follow a virtual Tai Chi teacher who was either Asian or European Caucasian. Each participant had 1, 2, or 3 exposures separated by days. Implicit racial bias was measured 1 week before their first exposure and 1 week after their last. The results show that implicit bias decreased more for those with the Black virtual body than the White. There was also some evidence of a general decrease in bias independently of body type for which possible explanations are put forward.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e2cfa349193fb80dfaf1044c0c56f4b8c5d3cd72

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Citations in the corpus

The Ethics of Realism in Virtual and Augmented Reality (2020, background): “…body and position of an “outgroup” member: a person with pale skin can temporarily have dark skin (Maister et al., 2013, 2015; Peck et al., 2013; Banakou et al., 2016) or vice versa, an adult can become a child (Banakou et al., 2013; Tajadura-Jiménez et al., 2017), and someone can experience a…”
Immersive VR and Education: Embodied Design Principles That Include Gesture and Hand Controls (2018, background): “He lists four: • Impossible —E.g., you cannot change skin color easily, but in VR you can inhabit avatars with diﬀerent skin colors with profound results (Banakou et al., 2016; Hasler et al., 2017).”
Enhancing Our Lives with Immersive Virtual Reality (2016, background): “Recent results demonstrate that the decrease in implicit bias lasts for at least 1 week after the exposure (Banakou et al., 2016). van der Hoort et al.”