A Bibliometric and Visualized Review of Research on VDH of the Metaverse

Since 2021, academia and industry have witnessed rapid advancements in virtual digital human (VDH) driven by the increasing development of the metaverse. Given the rich achievements on this topic, the current study is aimed at analyzing the research status and probing the research trends using the bibliometric method. A total of 460 journal papers on VDH were collected from the Web of Science Core Collection. The current hot topics in VDH research and main research power were analyzed and visualized using bibliometric software. The keyword co-occurrence and cluster analyses highlight prominent research hotspots and trends in VDH studies. Despite the diverse applications of VDHs, several challenges remain, including issues related to social acceptance and the uncanny valley effect. In summary, the research findings provide implications for the policymakers, industry stakeholders, and the public to understand the current hotspot and trends of VDH.