Effect of Social Settings on Proxemics During Social Interactions in Real and Virtual Conditions.

Virtual Reality (VR) offers unlimited possibilities to create virtual populated environments in which a user can be immersed and experience social interactions with virtual humans. A better understanding of these interactions is required to improve the realism of the interactions as well as user’s experience. Using an approach based on Interactionist Sociology, we wondered whether the social settings within which the individual interact has an impact on proxemics norms in real conditions and if these norms apply in VR. We conducted an experiment in real and virtual conditions where individuals experienced a transgression of proxemics norms at a train station and in a sports fan zone. Our results suggest that proxemics norms vary according to the subjective relationship of the individual to the social settings. This variation would translate directly into a modulation of bodily sensitivity to the proximity of the body of others. While we were able to show that social norms still exist in VR, our results did not show a main effect of the social settings on participants’ sensitivity to the transgression of proxemics norms. We discuss our results in the frame of the cross-fertilization between Sociology and VR.