TY - GEN
T1 - Exploring Situated Empathy through a Metaverse Campus
AU - Paananen, Ville
AU - Kiarostami, Sina
AU - Lee, Lik Hang
AU - Visuri, Aku
AU - Kheirinejad, Saba
AU - Hosio, Simo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Owner/Author.
PY - 2023/10
Y1 - 2023/10
N2 - Virtual Reality (VR) is promising in communicating people's hardship experiences in simulated situations. This can help foster empathy among people. In this paper, we present a VR experience designed to showcase the hardship experiences of an international higher education community concerning their studies and lives in an unfamiliar neighborhood. We collected hardship stories and data from 40 members of the community through an online questionnaire. The questionnaire analysis led to understanding critical issues, such as social problems, language barriers, issues with bureaucracy, and racism. We then turned the issues into interactive stories in VR. We recruited 18 participants to experience the hardship stories through interactions with avatars in a VR version of the campus where the community is located. Our preliminary results from the questionnaires suggest that the participants' knowledge and tendency to willingness to discuss the hardships improved due to participating in the experience. Further, our semi-structured interviews reflect positively on the VR experience's memorability, the stories' plausibility and participants' increased situated empathy and awareness regarding the hardships of the local international community. This early exploration informs future studies focusing on situated empathy.
AB - Virtual Reality (VR) is promising in communicating people's hardship experiences in simulated situations. This can help foster empathy among people. In this paper, we present a VR experience designed to showcase the hardship experiences of an international higher education community concerning their studies and lives in an unfamiliar neighborhood. We collected hardship stories and data from 40 members of the community through an online questionnaire. The questionnaire analysis led to understanding critical issues, such as social problems, language barriers, issues with bureaucracy, and racism. We then turned the issues into interactive stories in VR. We recruited 18 participants to experience the hardship stories through interactions with avatars in a VR version of the campus where the community is located. Our preliminary results from the questionnaires suggest that the participants' knowledge and tendency to willingness to discuss the hardships improved due to participating in the experience. Further, our semi-structured interviews reflect positively on the VR experience's memorability, the stories' plausibility and participants' increased situated empathy and awareness regarding the hardships of the local international community. This early exploration informs future studies focusing on situated empathy.
KW - community engagement
KW - empathy
KW - social issues
KW - virtual reality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85180003898&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3616961.3616971
DO - 10.1145/3616961.3616971
M3 - Conference article published in proceeding or book
AN - SCOPUS:85180003898
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
SP - 1
EP - 12
BT - ACADEMIC MINDTRICK 2023 - Proceedings of the 26th International Academic Mindtrek Conference
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 26th International Academic Mindtrek Conference, ACADEMIC MINDTRICK 2023
Y2 - 3 October 2023 through 6 October 2023
ER -