Exploring the Use of Cross-Cultural Parameterised Avatars in Virtual Learning Environments for Social Competence of People with Autism Spectrum Conditions

Background:  Emotions recognition and social competence are key features of autism spectrum conditions. Deficiency in emotion recognition leads to lack of social interaction and communication. This study explores the impact of using cross-cultural and features-augmented avatars within a virtual learning environment on the recognition of emotions. 

Objectives:  A prima facie case for a parameterised expressive avatar and virtual environment approach is developed including an argument that there is a great value of the additional set of features: ethnicity, gender, and age together with presentation of variant strengths of emotions by the avatar within a social context.

Methods:  A social-context rich collaborative virtual environment is developed and involves a set of expressive avatars with cross-cultural and variant features. A preliminary empirical study involves the use of this system by eighteen participants with confirmed autism spectrum conditions diagnosis in the a cross-cultural setting in the Middle-East.

Results: This is an ongoing study at this time and results are being collected and analyzed at the current time. The final paper will include the results and analysis

Conclusions: It is argued at this stage that the addition of the use of ethnicity, age, gender, and variable strengths of expressions to the expressive avatars makes participants better recognize the emotional representations of the avatars and make elicit the right selections when faced with social situations within the virtual environment.