The Avatar-Prioritization Effect Among Online Gamers: A Perspective From Self-Avatar Identity Relevance

【Author】 Qi, Yuxuan; Zou, Yuhan; Peng, Kaiping; Wang, Fei

【Source】JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH IN MEMORY AND COGNITION

【影响因子】4.600

【Abstract】Video game players may identify with the avatar they control and incorporate it into their own self-concepts, a phenomenon referred to as avatar identification. While most previous studies on avatar identification used self-reported scales, we examined whether the cognitive processing of avatar-related stimuli was prioritized at the relatively lower level via an adapted avatar shape-label matching task. League of Legends players responded faster, more accurately, and more efficiently to avatar-related stimuli than to familiar other-related ones. This avatar-prioritization effect was positively correlated with the "importance to identity " subdimension of avatar identification as well as some indicators of gaming behaviors (Experiment 1). In addition, the processing priority of avatar-related stimuli was higher as a function of increasing self-avatar identity relevance (Experiment 2). These findings provide empirical evidence that avatar identification also manifests without higher level cognitive processing and have implications for understanding people's behavior in the metaverse.

【Keywords】avatar identification; identity relevance; shape-label matching; avatar-prioritization effect; video games

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【收录时间】2023-02-10

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