JOSHUA TANENBAUM, MICHAEL NIXON, & MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

4
BASICS OF NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS
By Joshua Tanenbaum, Michael Nixon, and Magy Seif El-Nasr

The research space for digitally mediated nonverbal communication is quite broad, encompassing research
into animation, computer mediated communication, virtual reality, virtual worlds, massively multiplayer
online games, and embodied cognition. As a consequence, much of the relevant work to studies of NVC
in virtual worlds lies outside the disciplinary core of virtual worlds research. In this chapter we will
first look at research NVC research that doesn’t directly engage with virtual worlds, but which does have
significant implications for the field. We will then look at how research in virtual worlds is currently
engaging with issues of nonverbal communication. We also include a discussion of the recent work that
deals more broadly with social interactions in virtual worlds and massively multi-player online role playing
games (MMORPGS)

1. STUDIES OF NVC IN DIGITAL

ENVIRONMENTS AND VIRTUAL REALIT Y

NVC IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

A number of important studies have been performed that do not fit under the of Virtual Worlds research.
One of the foundational papers on creating realistic nonverbal actions for actors in virtual worlds was
Ken Perlin and Athomas Goldberg’s paper on Improv: a scripting system and architecture for animating
virtual agents (Perlin & Goldberg, 1996). Although it did not specifically engage the literature on NVC,
the Improv system laid the groundwork for much of the future work in virtual world development,
creating systems that created procedurally generated animations for virtual characters and directed them
in autonomous behaviors.

One common thread of investigation for studies of NVC in virtual worlds was aimed at gauging human
reactions to different degrees of “realism” in nonverbal cues given by virtual characters. Katherine Isbister
and Clifford Nass performed preliminary work on the relationship between verbal and nonverbal cues.
They asked human participants to evaluate interactions with animated virtual characters that exhibited
differing levels of extroversion and introversion (Isbister & Nass, 2000). They determined that participants
preferred characters where the verbal and non-verbal cues were internally consistent. Similarly, van Es
et al. performed a study, in which participants were asked to interact with one of three different “talking
heads”, each of which exhibited different eye gaze behaviors (van Es, Heylen, van Dijk, & Nijholt, 2002).
Unsurprisingly, their results indicated that participants regarded agents with more “natural” gaze behavior
more positively than agents with random gaze behavior.

33
CHAPTER 4 | BASICS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Another active area of inquiry has looked at social behaviors in textually mediated spaces. Walther et al.
tested whether or not the medium of communication – in this case face-to-face vs text chat – impacted
the creation of subjectively experienced affinity, and the communication of affect between participants,
concluding that there was no measurable difference between the communication channels (Walther, Loh, &
Granka, 2005). Amy Bruckman wrote about gender switching and gender identity in MUDs (Bruckman,
1993). Sherry Turkle discussed the sociological systems of MUDs, through a lens of postmodernism
(Turkle, 1995). Richard Bartle developed a typology of players in Multi User Dungeons/Dimensions
(MUDs) (Bartle, 1996). Julian Dibbell wrote about his time in the textual world of Lambda Moo, and
most famously on the impact of a virtual sexual assault on the members of the online community (Dibbell,
1998). This body of work provides a valuable historical context for our study of Nonverbal Communication
in Virtual Worlds, however, the lack of any sort of non-textual avatar body makes the vast majority of NVC
frameworks inapplicable to these spaces. For this reason, we have restricted the remainder of this chapter
to work that operates within graphical spaces.

VIRTUAL WORLDS VS. VIRTUAL REALIT Y

Virtual Reality (VR) and Virtual Worlds (VWs) have much in common, but are separated by their
assumptions about embodiment and proprioception. Embodiment is a broad term that can refer to a
whole range of phenomena. Tim Rohrer divides embodiment into twelve distinct dimensions, based on a
survey of how embodiment has been approached within cognitive science (Rohrer, 2007). Two of Roher’s
dimensions are of particular relevance to work in VR and VWs:

• Phenomenology: This dimension of embodiment deals with our conscious awareness

of our own bodies, and their role in mediating our experience of the world. Rohrer
distinguishes between “conscious phenomenology” and the notion of the “cognitive
unconscious” from cognitive psychology which deals with the autonomic reactions
of the body. In Virtual Reality research, this is commonly the form of embodiment
under discussion.
• Perspective: Embodiment can be taken to refer to a particular vantage point, or point-
of-view, from which an embodied perspective is taken. Perspectives imply bodily
orientations, which arise from a situatedness within the world. In Virtual Worlds,
embodiment is often a function of the perspective by which an interactor orients
herself to the world, often as mediated by an avatar body of some sort.

In Virtual Reality, ones sense of being embodied in the experience is often considered to overlap consistently
with ones phenomenological sense of embodiment: the virtual body and the physical body of the interactor
overlap. Research in Virtual Reality is often located within a laboratory environment, utilizing controlled
experimental methods. Due to the infrastructure needed for most VR experiences, these experiments are
done with individual interactants, or small local groups. Participants are often placed in a head mounted
display that attempts to simulate the visual experience being bodily present within the virtual space. In
these conditions, the participant’s sense of embodiment is assumed to be focused on her own body, and it’s
overlapping virtual representations.

In Virtual Worlds, which are primarily mediated via a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, embodiment
becomes more about the player’s ability to imagine her perspective into the virtual space via an avatar5.

5
Early work on avatar embodiment in virtual worlds was primarily concerned with the creation of rudimentary avatar bodies
for players to inhabit, as is the case in (Bowers, Pycock, & O’Brien, 1996) and (Benford, Bowers, Fahl´en, Greenhalgh,
& Snowdon, 1997). More recently, T.L. Taylor has written about the affordances of two dimensional avatars in “The
Dreamscape” (Taylor, 2002). Taylor breaks her analysis in two categories: Social Life and Avatar Identity. Social life discusses
issues around presence, communication, affiliation, socialization, and sexuality; avatar identity deals with issues around
customization, personal expression, avatar autonomy, and social experimentation.

34
 JOSHUA TANENBAUM, MICHAEL NIXON, & MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

Proprioception is the perception of the physical state of the body. Up until recently, this was used primarily
to refer only our perception of our own bodily state, however recent work in the neurological representation
of movement in the brain, and the discovery of “mirror neurons” has been used to argue for proprioception
as an aesthetic sense that includes our perception of others bodies on motion (Montero, 2006). This sense
of projected embodiment helps explain how players experience the bodies of their avatars in virtual worlds.

Research within existing commercial (or open source) Virtual Worlds does not lend itself to the same
experimental controls as research in VR. Instead, many of the studies of NVC in virtual worlds take the
form of ethnographic studies, or virtual travelogues. Some notable exceptions to these exist, in which
experimental procedures have been undertaken with and without the knowledge of the participants of the
virtual world under study. In some cases, researchers have developed their own in-house virtual world, in
which they can enact experimental controls by modifying the design of the world as needed. In all of these
cases, one important factor is the quantity of people simultaneously interacting within the world. Unlike
VR research, which tends to focus on individuals, virtual worlds research often must contend with hundreds
of simultaneous interactors in an ever shifting population. In virtual worlds research, the participants and
researchers pilot or “puppet” an avatar on a screen, alternating between third and first-person perspectives.
The sense of embodiment felt in this case is assumed to be a virtual embodiment, in which the body of the
interactor disappears, and the proprioceptive sense is mapped onto the avatar body instead.

STUDIES OF NVC IN VIRTUAL REALIT Y

Some of the earliest work in social signaling in digitally mediated environments takes place in virtual
reality systems, within laboratory settings. While there is very little work that directly relates to Nonverbal
Communication in VR, the few studies that do exist are very important, and establish a critical precedent
for looking at NVC in mediated environments. In particular, the work of Bailenson et al. has investigated
proxemic spacing behavior and mutual gaze in VR settings.

In (Bailenson, Blascovich, Beall, & Loomis, 2001) a series of controlled experiments were devised to
determine the impact of realistic gaze behavior on participants interacting with a virtual agent. Participants
were placed in a virtual space (via head-mounted display) and told to inspect the details of a virtual agent.
Three different agent conditions were tested: a “photorealistic” agent, a flat shaded agent, and a non-human
pillar. The two human agent conditions were varied for different levels of gaze behavior [Figure 4-1].

To interact with the agents, participants were allowed to move freely through a physical room, while
being tracked by cameras. Their results showed that participants were more likely to respect the personal
space of the agent as the realism conditions increased [Figure 4-2]. Their results also showed that female
participants were more likely to regulate their proxemic behavior than male participants.

In a follow up study, Bailenson’s group refined their experimental design. In (Bailenson, Blascovich, Beall,
& Loomis, 2003) two agents were used: one male and one female. The gaze conditions were simplified to
a low-realism condition and a high-realism condition, and a new variable of “perception of agency” was
introduced in which participants were led to believe that the virtual agent was actually an avatar under
human control in some cases. This new study determined that perception of agency6, along with realistic
gaze was actually a key factor in how participants perceived personal space around the virtual human.

6
A later study by Shilbach et al. indicated that there is a measurable neural correlate between perception of social entailment
and perception of communicative intent. Using fMRI to measure neural activity, researchers placed participants in a virtual
social situation in which facial expression and gaze behavior was varied to either indicate specific communicative intent, or to
shift arbitrarily (Schilbach et al., 2006). Participants interacting with the non-arbitrary conditions evidenced neural activity
associated with social communication.

35
CHAPTER 4 | BASICS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Figure 4-1: Gaze behavior conditions in (Bailenson, et al., 2001).

Reprinted by permission of MIT Press Journals.

Figure 4 2: Results for Female participants interacting with virtual agents in

(Bailenson, et al., 2001). In this “overhead view” dotted lines indicate the rout taken
through the room by participants, while the * indicates the location of the agent.
Reprinted by permission of MIT Press Journals.
36
 JOSHUA TANENBAUM, MICHAEL NIXON, & MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

Their results indicated that within VR, proxemic spacing behaviors and gaze operate almost identically to
how they operate in the physical world.

2. STUDIES OF NVC IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

In 1998 the Joint European Commission and National Science Foundation Strategy Group met to discuss
the key research challenges and opportunities in information technology, including human-centered
computing, online communities, and virtual environments (J. R. Brown et al., 1999). Their initial report
included a call for more study of virtual worlds, a recommendation that signaled a growing interest and
concern with these growing social spaces. In the last 15 years we have seen an explosion of research in how
people communicate within graphically mediated virtual environments, and an ever evolving landscape of
virtual worlds in which to conduct this research.

In his 2006 article on The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively
Multi-User Online Graphical Environments Nick Yee builds a case for social interactions in virtual worlds
being more intense than those that occur in the physical world, due to the particular way in which they are
mediated (Yee, 2006). Citing (Walther, 1996) he writes that:

“…one of the reasons why hyperpersonal interactions – interactions that are more
intimate, more intense, and more salient because of the communication channel – occur
in computer-mediated communication (CMC) is because participants can reallocate
cognitive resources typically used to maintain socially acceptable nonverbal gestures in
face-to-face interactions and focus on the structure and content of the message itself. The
message itself then comes across as more personal and articulate. Indeed, in virtual worlds
where we do not have to constantly worry about how we look and behave, we would be
able to dedicate more cognitive resources to the message itself.” (Yee, 2006)

This is interesting, in that is suggests that the narrower communication channels in virtual worlds
serve to filter out communicative “noise” from conversations. Within current virtual environments,
kinesic nonverbal communication requires the same degree of active monitoring and attention as verbal
communication, such that it also fits within this privileged-narrow channel. A consequence of this is that
there is more opportunity for participants in a conversation to construct idealized versions of themselves,
by presenting carefully curated visuals, behaviors, and utterances. The inclusion of more nuanced NVC
mechanisms in virtual worlds – especially autonomic and subconscious NVC such as posture and status –
has the potential to disrupt communication, or at least render it less amenable to dissemblance.

EARLY WORK ON KINESICS IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

In one of the earliest works on NVC in virtual worlds, Guye-Vuilleme et al. developed a simple button-
based GUI for pupetteering avatars in a shared virtual environment (Guye-Vuillieme, Capin, Pandzic,
Magnenat, & Thalmann, 1999). In their review of NVC in the social sciences, they cite (Corraze, 1980)
and usefully establish three categories of information that can be conveyed:

1. Information about the affective state of the sender

2. Information about his/her identity
3. Information about the external world

37
CHAPTER 4 | BASICS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

To communicate this information,(Corraze, 1980) identifies three main channels:

1. The body and its moves

2. The artefacts linked to the body or to the environment
3. The distribution of the individuals in space

We see some precedence for item #2 on the second list in the later Kinesic work of Michael Argyle.
In his Bodily Communication he describes six broad areas for which NVC is used: for expressing emotion,
for communicating interpersonal attitudes, for expressing personality, for augmenting speech, as a form
of social ritual or ceremony, and as a social form of persuasion (Argyle, 1975). Interestingly, Argyle’s
framing of NVC is not limited to just the body in space, and its movements; he also includes visual
elements like hair, physique, and clothing, arguing that appearance is an important sphere for nonverbal
communication (Argyle, 1975).

Guye-Vuilleme et al. go on to describe their prototype shared virtual environment VLNET (Virtual Life
Network), which they modified to support kinesic NVC. Their initial experiment gave precedence to affect
displays, as represented in facial expressions and postures, and to emblems in the form of specific triggered
gestures. They developed a button based “control panel” interface that allowed participants to trigger and
control several gestural parameters [Figure 4-3]. To evaluate this interface, an informal experiment was
run to determine if participants using the VLNET framework and tools could replicate their real world
relationships with each other within the digital environment. Participants were placed in the environment
with no tasks to perform, and invited to interact (or not) freely. They observed that participants of varying
degrees of real life intimacy exhibited varying interactional distances in the virtual world, consistent with
findings in proxemics. They also observed that participants were more likely to use a wide range of gestures,
while postures were often selected at the beginning of the interaction, and left alone for the duration of
the exchange. This is in keeping with Ekman’s framework of NVC, and appears to be a function of the
participant’s awareness and intentionality in regards to these different modes of communication.

Interestingly, the VLNET system was configured so that participants experienced the world from a first
person perspective only. Participants expressed a desire to be able to see the body of their avatar during
the study, but Guye-Vuillieme et al. feared that this would take away from the user’s sense of immersion

Figure 4-3: The NVC application interface from (Guye-Vuillieme et al., 1999).
With kind permission from Springer Science and Business Media.
38
 JOSHUA TANENBAUM, MICHAEL NIXON, & MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

in the world. The near ubiquity of third person views in virtual worlds today, and research into virtual
embodiment and the importance of the avatar as discussed by (Benford et al., 1997) and (Bowers et al.,
1996) prior to Guye-Vuillieme’s work strongly contradicts this claim. Later work, such as that of (Schroeder,
2002), (Taylor, 2002), and (Morie & Verhulsdonck, 2008) all deals with the extreme importance of the
visible avatar body to users of virtual worlds.

THE IMPACT OF DESIGN AND AFFORDANCES OF VIRTUAL WORLDS

Guye-Vuilleme et al. developed a prototype virtual world to study NVC; at the same time Barbara Becker
and Gloria Mark were investigating social signaling behaviors across three existing virtual worlds: Active
Worlds, Onlive Traveler, and Lambda MOO (Becker & Mark, 1998). Their paper on social conventions in
collaborative virtual environments is one of the first extensive comparative ethnographic studies of virtual
worlds. They identified a number of social conventions in the physical world that also were present within
the virtual worlds under study. These included greeting behavior; leave-taking; group formation; privacy
indication; nonverbal expression; social positioning and intimacy; and sanctions of unwanted behavior.
Their analysis of the frequency of use, and the effectiveness of these behaviors indicated that one of crucial
factors in supporting social conventions in virtual worlds was the technological affordances of the world
itself. It should come as no surprise to us that this is the case: the affordances of the interface, the design
and animation of the avatars, and the physical rules governing how avatars occupy space all have profound
implications on what nonverbal behaviors people will favor.

The relationship between affordances, design, and observed communication is the subject of much of the
literature surrounding virtual worlds. In 2002 Cheng et al. published an article describing their experience
developing and deploying virtual worlds for Microsoft (Cheng, Farnham, & Stone, 2002). Their paper
reported on lessons learned from seven years of building graphical virtual environments, including
Microsoft V-Chat and the Microsoft Virtual Worlds Platform. It is rare to find scholarly articles discussing
the design of a commercial game or software system from the perspective of the developer7, and this paper
provides a helpful bit of insight into the design process of virtual worlds, and in particular to role that NVC
plays in this process. The article identifies nine design lessons to foster sustainable dynamic communities,
which the authors classify into three areas [Table 4-1]. Their research methods consisted of a combination
of qualitative and quantitative approaches including informal observations of people in the graphical
environments, interviews and surveys, analysis of log data, and experimental studies. These evaluation
processes fed into the ongoing revision of the virtual world platforms in an iterative design process.

Table 4-1: Design lessons for fostering sustainable, dynamic communities (Cheng et al., 2002).

GENERAL
SPECIFIC DESIGN LESSONS
AREA
“1. Provide persistent identity to encourage responsible behavior, individual accountability, and the development of lasting relationships.”

Individuals “2. Support custom profile information that addresses the privacy concerns of individuals.”

“3. Encourage individuals to invest in their self-representation by supporting custom end user graphical representations.”

“4. Support the ability for groups to form and then self-regulate.”

“5. Frequent and repeated interactions promote cooperative behavior. Help people coordinate finding and meeting those they care
Social Dynamics
about to increase the likelihood of positive interactions.”

“6. Make community spaces more compelling by supporting the development of reputation and status.”

The rhythm and tempo of the movement is proportionate to the mass (including emotion) to be moved.
Context,
Environments and “7. End users and world builders preferred 3D, non-abstract environments with a third person view.”
User Interface
“9. Different communities have different needs and require different user interfaces.”

7
One of the most comprehensive guides to the design of virtual worlds comes from Richard Bartle, who developed the first
MUD. It is recommended reading for anyone interested in the practice of world design (Bartle, 2004).

39
CHAPTER 4 | BASICS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Items #7 and #8 on this list are of particular interest to any study of NVC in virtual world, in that they
deal with the design and usage of avatars, gestures, and environments. Of NVC in virtual worlds, Cheng
et al. write:

“We found that people did use the 3D space for non-verbal communication. They used
their ability to position in the 3D environment to stand near and to look at the person
with whom they were talking. Furthermore, because they were able to communicate the
direction of their attention non-verbally, they were less likely to address their chat messages
with user names than if the communicated only though text chat.” (Cheng et al., 2002)

Following their analysis and observations, they concluded that the use of NVC allowed people
to express emotions, and communicate interest and attention, but that it often interfered with verbal,
text communication.

In their longitudinal ethnography of There.com, Brown and Bell identified interactions with objects within
the environment as a crucial component of collaborative social actions; the presence of interactive objects
within the space provided a structure for social collaboration (B. Brown & Bell, 2004). More recently,
in 2006 Williams et al. wrote about the social life of guilds in World of Warcraft (Wiliams et al., 2006).
Using a combination of interviews and a “social network census” administered via a survey they identified
a number of social norms in MMORPGs. Their analysis identifies the game mechanics of World of
Warcraft as the “key moderator” of these social outcomes by encouraging certain types of interactions and
discouraging others (Wiliams et al., 2006). Taken alongside the writing of Cheng et al. we find a persuasive
argument for carefully integrating an analysis of the technological affordances and design parameters of a
given virtual world into any model of NVC for virtual worlds. To put this in context with previous work in
NVC, one of the origins of nonverbal behaviors identified by Ekman and Friesen is the physical experience
of embodiment within the world (Ekman & Friesen, 1981). In the same way that our bodies shape the
ways in which we can communicate non-verbally, the avatar bodies, interface mechanisms, and procedural
systems (such as game rules, and the underlying logic of the simulated environment) designed into virtual
worlds greatly constrain, shape, and afford particular types of nonverbal behavior that are idiosyncratic to
each world.

EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF PROXEMICS IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Yee and Bailenson (and collaborators) extended their individual earlier work into Second Life to study the
import of NVC within an active virtual world. In their 2007 article The Unbearable Likeness of Being
Digital: The Persistance of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments they developed a script
that allowed them to measure the proximal distances and gaze orientations of the 16 avatars closest
to the researcher in a virtual 200 meter radius, and to track whether or not the observed avatars were
talking to each-other or not (Yee, Bailenson, Urbanek, Chang, & Merget, 2007). Their measurements of
interpersonal distance (IPD) and mutual gaze allowed them to calculate whether or not equilibrium theory
and proxemics could be used to account for player behavior in Second Life. They concluded that “our social
interactions in online virtual environments, such as Second Life are governed by the same social norms as
social interactions in the physical world” (Yee et al., 2007).

In a very similar study, Friedman et al. developed a set of “social bots” that traversed Second Life seeking
out other avatars and engaging in pre-programmed social behavior(Friedman, Steed, & Slater, 2007).
These automated research instruments measured the proximal responses of other avatars in two different
experiments. In the first experiment, rather than measuring group interactions, like (Yee et al., 2007), they
focused on avatars in dyadic interactions that were isolated from other groups of players. Their data allowed
them to claim that “users tend to keep their avatars in non-arbitrary proximity from the other avatars they

40
 JOSHUA TANENBAUM, MICHAEL NIXON, & MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

are interacting with”, however they challenged Yee et al’s claim that proxemic spacing behavior translated
directly from the physical world to the virtual one. In their second experiment, they programmed their
bots to initiate an interaction with a user in Second Life, and then move into an uncomfortable close
interaction distance of 1.2 meters. The bot then observed the response of the user for 10 seconds and
reported the results. Many of the subjects approached in the way retreated from the bot, which allowed
them to determine that interactors in Second Life have an awareness of personal space (Friedman et al.,
2007).

Some of the most recent work in NVC for virtual worlds has attempted to use proxemics to guide the
behaviors of autonomous agents and NPCs in simulated worlds. Laga and Amaoka described an agent
control system that incorporated the rules of interpersonal distance and gaze to manage the proxemic
spacing of groups of virtual agents (Laga & Amaoka, 2009). Their system claims to be able to achieve more
natural movement within groups that obey the rules of personal space and gaze described in proxemics.

3. CHAPTER REVIEW

There is still much work to be done in the space of nonverbal communication in virtual worlds.
In this chapter we have reviewed some of the most significant research within the field, across a number
of disciplines.

One thing that unifies most of the observational and experimental work in virtual worlds is an emphasis on
proxemics and gaze rather than kinesics and gesture. This is unsurprising, since positioning avatars in these
systems is a fundamental and transparent interaction: one which requires little additional UI affordances
beyond the entry level interactions. Contemporary virtual worlds more naturally afford unconscious
proxemic behaviors, whereas the literacies required for more sophisticated kinesic communication are often
much more advanced. While a case might be made for the ease of gathering data about IPD and Gaze
in virtual worlds, as opposed to gathering data about the use of kinesic communications, we see many
opportunities to broaden studies in virtual worlds to include analysis of appearance, gesture, posture, and
even facial expression. We regard the lack of this work as a significant gap in current research around NVC
in virtual worlds, and an important direction for future research.

4. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Argyle, M. (1975). Bodily Communication (1st ed.). London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
Bailenson, J. N., Blascovich, J., Beall, A. C., & Loomis, J. M. (2001). Equilibrium Theory Revisited:
Mutual Gaze and Personal Space in Virtual Environments. Presence, 10(6), 583-598.
Bailenson, J. N., Blascovich, J., Beall, A. C., & Loomis, J. M. (2003). Interpersonal Distance in
Immersive Virtual Environments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 819 - 833.
Bartle, R. A. (1996). Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs. The Journal of Virtual
Environments, 1(1).
Bartle, R. A. (2004). Designing Virtual Worlds: New Riders Publishing.
Becker, B., & Mark, G. (1998). Social Conventions in Collaborative Virtual Environments. Paper
presented at the Collaborative Virtual Envrionments 1998 (CVE’98), Manchester, UK.
Benford, S., Bowers, J., Fahl´en, L. E., Greenhalgh, C., & Snowdon, D. (1997). Embodiments, avatars,
clones and agents for multi-user, multi-sensory virtual worlds. Multimedia Systems, 5, 93 - 104.
Bowers, J., Pycock, J., & O’Brien, J. (1996). Talk and Embodiment in Collaborative Virtual
Environments. Paper presented at the CHI’96, Vancouver, BC.

41
CHAPTER 4 | BASICS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Brown, B., & Bell, M. (2004, November 6 - 10). CSCW at Play: ‘There’ as a Collaborative Virtual
Environment. Paper presented at the CSCW’04, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Brown, J. R., van Dam, A., Earnshaw, R., Encarnacao, J., Guedj, R., Preece, J., . . . Vince, J. (1999).
Human-Centered Computing, Online Communities, and Virtual Environments
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.
Bruckman, A. (1993). Gender Swapping on the Internet. In P. Ludlow (Ed.), High Noon on the
Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace (pp. 317 - 325). Boston, MA:
Massachusetts Institiute of Technology.
Cheng, L., Farnham, S., & Stone, L. (2002). Lessons Learned: Building and Deploying Shared Virtual
Environments. In R. Scroeder (Ed.), The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in
Shared Virtual Environments (pp. 90 - 111). London: Springer-Verlag.
Corraze, J. (1980). Les communications non-verbales. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Dibbell, J. (1998). My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World. New York: Henry Hold
and Company, Inc.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1981). The Repertoire of Nonverbal Behavior: Categories, Origins, Usage,
and Coding. In T. A. Sebeok, J. Umiker-Sebeok & A. Kendon (Eds.), Nonverbal Communication,
Interaction, and Gesture. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.
Friedman, D., Steed, A., & Slater, M. (2007). Spatial Social Behavior in Second Life. Lecture Notes in
Artificial Intelligence, 4722, 252-263.
Guye-Vuillieme, A., Capin, T. K., Pandzic, I. S., Magnenat, N., & Thalmann, D. (1999). Nonverbal
communication interface for collaborative virtual environments. Virtual Reality Journal, 4, 49-59.
Isbister, K., & Nass, C. (2000). Consistency of personality in interactive characters: verbal cues, non-
verbal cues, and user characteristics. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 53, 251 - 267.
Laga, H., & Amaoka, T. (2009). Modeling the Spatial Behavior of Virtual Agents in Groups for Non-verbal
Communication in Virtual Worlds. Paper presented at the 3rd International Universal Communication
Symposium, Tokyo, Japan.
Montero, B. (2006). Proprioceiving Someone Else’s Movement. Philosophical Explorations, 9(2), 149 - 161.
Morie, J. F., & Verhulsdonck, G. (2008). Body/Persona/Action! Emerging Non-anthropomorphic
Communication and Interaction in Virtual Worlds. Paper presented at the Advances in
Computer Entertainment Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
Perlin, K., & Goldberg, A. (1996). Improv: a system for scripting interactive actors in virtual worlds. Paper
presented at the 23rd annual conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.
Rohrer, T. (2007). The Body in Space: Dimensions of Embodiment. Body, Language and Mind, 2.
Schilbach, L., Wohlschlaeger, A. M., Kraemer, N. C., Newen, A., Shah, N. J., Fink, G. R., & Vogeley, K.
(2006). Being with virtual others: Neural correlates of social interaction. Neuropsychologia,
44(5), 718-730.
Schroeder, R. (2002). Social Interaction in Virtual Environments: Key Issues, Common Themes, and a
Framework for Research. In R. Scroeder (Ed.), The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in
Shared Virtual Environments (pp. 1 - 18). London: Springer-Verlag.
Taylor, T. L. (2002). Living Digitally: Embodiment in Virtual Worlds. In R. Scroeder (Ed.), The Social
Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments (pp. 40 - 62). London:
Springer-Verlag.
Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster.
van Es, I., Heylen, D., van Dijk, B., & Nijholt, A. (2002). Gaze Behavior of Talking Faces Makes a Difference.
Paper presented at the CHI 2002, Minneapolis, USA.
Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, Interpersonal, and
Hyperpersonal Interaction. Communication Research, 23, 3 - 43.
Walther, J. B., Loh, T., & Granka, L. (2005). Let Me Count The Ways: The interchange of Verbal and
Nonverbal Cues in Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Affinity. Journal of Language and
Social Psychology, 24(1), 36-65.

42
 JOSHUA TANENBAUM, MICHAEL NIXON, & MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

Wiliams, D., Ducheneaut, N., Xiong, L., Zhang, Y., Yee, N., & Nickell, E. (2006). From Tree House to
Barracks: The Social Life of Guilds in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 1(4), 338 - 361.
Yee, N. (2006). The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively
Multi-User Online Graphical Environments. Presence, 15(3), 309-329.
Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., Urbanek, M., Chang, F., & Merget, D. (2007). The Unbearable Likeness
of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments.
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 115 - 121.

43
CHAPTER 2 | AUTHOR AND EDITOR BIOS

2. EDITORS BIOS

JOSHUA TANENBAUM
Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts + Technology
josh.thegeekmovement.com
josh.tanenbaum@gmail.com

Joshua Tanenbaum is a PhD Candidate at Simon Fraser University in the School of Interactive Arts +
Technology. His research spans a broad cross section of digital games, new media, tangible and embodied
interaction, and human computer interaction. He is primarily interested in the poetics of digital narratives:
his dissertation work draws on theories and practice from the performing arts to investigate how digital
narratives can support transformative experiences. His other research includes writing on the intersection
of Design Fiction, Maker culture, Steampunk, and Democracy, and research into the uses of serious games
to engage broad publics in intergenerational dialogues about local sustainability issues. He comes to the
study of nonverbal communications and virtual worlds from the perspective of embodied and gestural
interfaces for games.

MAGY SEIF EL-NASR

Northeastern University, Colleges of Computer and Information Sciences, and Arts, Media and Design.
http://nuweb.neu.edu/magy/home.html
magy@northeastern.edu

Magy Seif El-Nasr, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Colleges of Computer and Information Sciences
and Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University. She is also the Director of the Game Educational
Programs and Research at Northeastern and the Director of Game Design Program in College of Arts,
Media and Design. She also directs the Game User Experience and Design Research Lab. Dr. Seif El-Nasr
earned her Ph.D. degree from Northwestern University in Computer Science. Magy’s research focuses
on interactive narrative, enhancing game designs by developing tools and methods for evaluating and
adapting game experiences. Her work is internationally known and cited in several game industry books,
including Programming Believable Characters for Computer Games (Game Development Series) and Real-time
Cinematography for Games. In addition, she has received several best paper awards for her work. Magy
worked collaboratively with Electronic Arts, Bardel Entertainment, and Pixel Ante.

MICHAEL NIXON
Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts + Technology
http://www.siat.sfu.ca/graduate-students/profile/michael-nixon
Mna32@sfu.ca

Michael Nixon is a PhD Candidate at the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser
University. He researches how to make characters in digital environments more believable through the use
of better cognitive models and non-verbal behavior within a social context. Michael’s M.Sc. thesis describes
an investigation of the suitability of Delsarte’s system of movement as a framework for believable characters.
His dissertation research focuses on the use of social signals as cues in the creation of unique identities.

12