Anthropomorphism and illusion of virtual body ownership

In this paper we present a novel experiment to explore the impact of avatar realism on the illusion of virtual body ownership (IVBO) in immersive virtual environments, with full-body avatar embodiment and freedom of movement. We evaluated four distinct avatars presenting an increasing level of anthropomorphism in their detailed compositions. Our results revealed that each avatar elicited a relatively high level of illusion. However both machine-like and cartoon-like avatars elicited an equivalent IVBO, slightly superior to the human-ones. A realistic human appearance is therefore not a critical top-down factor of IVBO, and could lead to an Uncanny Valley effect.