The Affordances of Immersive Virtual Environment Technology for Studying Social
Affordances
Author(s): Leslie A. Zebrowitz
Source: Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002), pp. 143-145
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1449173 .
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COMMENTARIES
scribed here will confront the use of IVET to
manipulatestimulus characteristicsin studies of person perceptionand stereotyping,at least until creative
methodologicalthinkingleads to new approaches.
Note
Eliot R. Smith, Department of Psychological
Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette,
IN 47907-1364. E-mail: esmith@psych.purdue.edu
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or preparationfor situated action? Discourse Processes, 28,
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Smith, E. R., & Semin, G. R. (2001). Thefoundations of socially
situated action. Socially situated cognition. Unpublished
manuscript,PurdueUniversity, Departmentof Psychological
Sciences.
The Affordances of Immersive Virtual Environment Technology for
Studying Social Affordances
Leslie A. Zebrowitz
Departmentof Psychology
Brandeis University
In the early 1980s, Reuben Baron and I (McArthur
& Baron, 1983) proposed a Gibsonian ecological approach to social perception. As described later, this
theoretical approach has several distinguishing featuresthathave not been well exploitedin social perception researchduringthe ensuing 2 decades.This can be
attributedin largemeasureto a zeitgeist favoringmore
cognitive approaches.However, it can also be attributed to the dearth of experimentalmethods that are
conducive to systematically investigatingpredictions
derived from the ecological approach.Immersivevirtual environmenttechnology (IVET) provides a methodological tool thatbegins to fill this void.
One centralassumptionof the ecological position is
that informationabout the social environmentis typically revealed in objective physical events (dynamic,
changing, multimodal stimulus information) as opposed to static or unimodaldisplays or verbaldescriptions. Integral to the emphasis on dynamic stimulus
informationis an emphasison the activeperceiver.Not
only is it axiomatic that"perceptionis for doing"(J. J.
Gibson, 1979), but also it is recognizedthatthe actions
of the perceiver have a significant impact on what is
perceived. Even inert objects yield dynamic stimulus
informationwhen perceiversare permittedactive perceptualexploration(e.g., J. J. Gibson, 1966, p. 195). In
the case of social perception, the effect of an active
perceiver on the informationrevealed is likely to be
more significant.
Few experiments in the field of social perception
have provideddynamic, changing, multimodalstimulus informationto active perceivers.Paper-and-pencil
descriptions of people remain the most frequently
used method for testing social perceptionhypotheses,
and videotapes of people are the closest that most experimentscome to providing event information.Only
a small fraction of experimentshave investigated the
perceptions of active perceivers, both because it is
costly and time consuming to observe the responses
of people in live social interactionsand also because
such observations create data-analytic complexities
(cf. Kenny, 1994). IVET can be used to provide dynamic, changing, multimodalstimulus informationto
active perceivers without these drawbacksof live social interactions.
Anothercentralassumptionof the ecological position is thatinformationavailablein events specifies environmental affordances (e.g., E. J. Gibson, 2000;
Mace, 2000 and Stoffregen,2000, for an extendeddiscussion). Consistentwith the tenet that "perceptionis
for doing" (J. J. Gibson, 1979), social affordancesare
the opportunitiesfor acting, interacting,or being acted
on thatthe othersprovide.A more poetic and vivid indication of what J. J. Gibson (1979) meant by
affordanceis provided by his quotation from Koffka
"Each thing says what it is. ... A fruit says 'eat me';
water says 'drink me'; thunder says 'fear me'; and
womansays 'love me"' (p. 138). AlthoughGibsonemphasized the objective reality of affordances,he also
emphasized their emergence from the interactionof
qualities of the environmentand the qualities of the
perceiver.There are two contextual influences on the
emergence of affordances. One is the social setting,
which can influence the event informationthatreveals
affordances.Another is the perceiver's attunementto
the informationthatis available,which dependson the
perceiver'sgoals, behavioralcapabilities,and perceptual experiences(McArthur& Baron, 1983). A woman
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COMMENTARIES
may affordloving by some perceiversand in some contexts but not others.
Little research has endeavoredto assess perceived
affordancesin the social domain, and that which has
done so has typicallyreliedon verbalreportsby passive
perceivers (e.g., Beauvois & Dubois, 2000; Berry &
McArthur, 1986; Johnston, 1999; Kirkland, 1991;
McArthur& Apatow, 1983-1984). However,people's
verbalreportsmay not reflect perceivedaffordancesas
adequatelyas do theirbehaviorsin a live social interaction.This is becauseperceivedaffordancescan be influenced by the active perceiver's behaviors and by the
availabilityof event informationin a particularsocial
setting (e.g., Miller,Shim, & Holden, 1998). Justas the
perceivededibilityof a fruitcan be influencedby grasping the fruitandsqueezingit or breakingit open, so may
the perceived helpfulness of people be influenced by
nonverbalinteractionswith them. Justas the perceived
edibilityof a fruitcan be influencedby its locationin the
refrigeratoror a knickknackshop, so may the perceived
helpfulnessof people be influencedby theirlocationin a
hospitalora darkalley.As discussedlater,IVETenables
investigatorsto studyperceivedaffordancesthroughbehavioralresponses in variouscontexts.
A final assumptionof the ecological position is that
social perceptionserves an adaptivefunction. Perception not only is for doing; it is for doing well. As such,
social affordancesshould be accuratelyperceived,and
they should enable perceivers to achieve their social
goals.' Although there has been a resurgenceof interest in the accuracyof social perceptions,the methodology employed in this research does not assess the
accuracy of perceived affordances (see Zebrowitz &
Collins, 1997, for a review). Typically, judgments
about the attributesof targetindividualsare compared
with other indexes of those attributes,such as the target's self-reports,the reportsof the target'sfriends, or
scores on objectivetests. Such methodsfail to takeinto
accountcontextualfactorsthatcan influence the accuracy of perceptions.Contextualinfluences, such as the
social setting and the perceiver'sattunement,can yield
accurate perception of affordances even when judgments would be inaccurateby usual standards.For example, a stranger's assessment of a target as
submissive may be inaccurate when compared with
self-reportsor judgments of his friends. However,the
Although the accuracyof social perceptionis emphasizedin the
ecological approach,it is also acknowledgedthaterrorsmay occur.
Such errors are due to the lack of available informationor to the
overgeneralizationof perceptionsthat typically are adaptiveand accurate. In particular,I have arguedthat the evolutionaryimportance
of detectingattributessuch as age, emotion, health,species, andidentity may have produced such a strong preparednessto respond to
stimulus information that reveals them that responses are
overgeneralizedto individualswhose stimuluspropertiesmerely resemble these attributes (Zebrowitz, 1997; Zebrowitz & Collins,
1997).
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same strangermay accurately perceive his ability to
dominatethat targetin a particularcontext.
IVET can enable researchersto investigate social
perception in a manner that fulfills many of the assumptions of the ecological approach.The ability of
IVET to provide visual, auditory,olfactory, and even
hapticinformationmeets the assumptionthatinformation aboutthe social environmentis typically revealed
in objective physical events: dynamic, changing,
multimodalstimulus information.Moreover, systematic variationsin the informationprovidedin these modalities using IVET can reveal how each contributesto
social perceptions. The ability of IVET to allow
perceiversto generateevent informationthatis contingent on their own behaviorsmeets the emphasis on an
active perceiver, and the incorporationof an active
perceiver also allows researchersto investigate perceived affordances.Take, for example, an immersive
virtual environmentthat might be created to test my
own hypotheses about the perceived affordances of
people who varyin the maturityof theirphysical qualities (cf. Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998; Zebrowitz,
1997). One could populatethis environmentwith several human-avatarsthat vary in babyfaceness, vocal
maturity,and/orgait qualities and examine responses
to them in varioussituationsthat are createdwith differentCAVEsTM.
To see who is perceivedas affording
gullibility,participantscould be told thatthey will win
some money if they can get someone to believe a
far-fetchedstory, with greaterelapsed time reducing
the size of the prize. One could then observe the order
in which various human-avatarsare approached.To
see who is perceived as physically able, participants
could be told that they and a partnerwill win a monetaryprizeequal to the totalnumberof pushupsthey can
do betweenthemandthenobserveto see who is chosen
as a partner.To see who is perceivedas affordingcomfort, participantscould experiencesome stressorin the
immersivevirtualenvironmentandthenbe observedto
see with whom they interact.To see who is perceived
as affordingtrustworthiness,participantscould be told
thatone person in the room cheats at cards and then be
observedto see whom they exclude when they choose
a foursomefor a bridgegame.
Theforegoingexperimentsdo notexplicitlyconsider
the emergentnatureof perceivedaffordances(i.e., their
dependenceon qualitiesof the perceiverandthecontext
as well as on thepersonwho is perceived).However,this
could be discernedby the examinationof the effects of
differentperceivergoals, behavioralcapabilities, and
contexts on interactionpreferences.For example, people who seek the affordanceof physicalstrengthshould
interactwith a differenthuman-avatarthan those who
seek the affordanceof gullibility. Like experimentally
inducedgoals, those thatperceiversbringwith them to
the experimentmay also influence interactionpreferences. Forexample, insofaras people with an avoidant
COMMENTARIES
attachmentstyle eschew being comfortedby others,the
avatarswith which they choose to interactunderstress
may be differentfromthose chosenby people with a secure attachmentstyle. Differentbehavioralcapabilities
may also attuneperceiversto differentaffordances.For
example, if prizes areawardedto a teamfor the number
ofpushups andanagramsthey canperform,people who
arecapableof doingmanypushupsmay choose a different avataras a partnerthanthose who arecapableof doing many anagrams.Finally,differentcontextsthatcan
be created with CAVEsTMmay make salient different
affordances. People who are stressed by painful or
frighteningstimuli in a hospital settingmay seek comfortfrom strangers,whereasthose who arestressedin a
darkalley will not.
Although IVET is well suited to testing the
affordancesthatareperceivedin others,it is less able to
test the accuracyof these perceptions.Does the person
who is perceived to afford gullibility or comfort or
strengthor trustworthinessactuallyprovidethese qualities to the perceiver?The use of IVET to answersuch
questions requires that the human-avatarsbe programmedto behave in certainpredictableways, giving
perceiversthe opportunityto observe and interactwith
the avatars;the perceivers'behaviormust then be observed to assess whether they show accurateknowledge of the avatars'actual affordances.If it does, that
will demonstratethat active perceiverscan accurately
discern social affordances.However,it does not demonstratethat they actually do discern them in real life.
This is because the degree of accuracy shown in discerning the avatars'affordances will not necessarily
generalize to perceptions of real humans, whose
affordancesmay be eithermore or less transparentthan
those of the programmedavatars.
In sum, IVET provides a very promising and
much-neededmethodology for the systematicalinvestigation of predictionsderivedfrom the ecological approach to social perception. However, it does have a
significant limitation. Although experiments using
IVET can elucidatethe affordancesthatwe perceivein
others and the natureof the stimulus informationthat
communicatesthose affordances,ascertainingthe accuracy of perceived affordancesin real life awaits our
ability to programavatarsto behave like real people.
Note
Leslie A. Zebrowitz,MS-062 BrandeisUniversity,
P. 0. Box 549110, Waltham, MA 02454-9110.
E-mail:zebrowitz@brandeis.edu
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