Visual Style of Embodied Virtual Sales Agents

The present study explored the effects of naturalism-stylization visual style of embodied virtual agents in an e-commerce website. An experiment was conducted in which participants (n=110) were paired with either the naturalistic or stylized agent that simulated the roles of a virtual sales assistant. It was shown that stylized agent produced significantly higher social perceptions of agent, perceived website social presence, perceived website social support than naturalistic agent. Moreover, stylized agent evoked significantly higher sense of website trust and lower perceived website financial risk from participants as compared to naturalistic agent. Further, the effects of visual style of agent on perceived website social presence was fully mediated by social perceptions of agent whereas the effects of visual style of agent on perceived website social support was partially mediated by perceived website social presence. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in this paper.