Abstract
In our increasingly digitalized society, interactions with digital human avatars are becoming more commonplace. Consequently, it is important to explore how humans perceive and react to digital human avatars. In this work, we conduct, and report findings of, an empirical study to explore perceptions and reactions to digital humans with human-like resemblance in appearance and behavior. The study compared perceptions and reactions between different user generations and genders, and its research methodology was underpinned by the four theories of anthropomorphism, social presence, personality inference, and parasocial interaction. The study encompassed interacting with a digital human, investigating notions of digital human avatar appearance for different professions, and in-depth interviews. Our findings indicate how demographic factors may play a part in affecting consumer perceptions and reactions to digital humans, with our older Generation-Y participants and male participants having more positive perceptions, and our younger Generation-Z participants and female participants being the least positive. Furthermore, exploration of digital humans within different professions highlights the potential for prevailing stereotypes, of features such as gender and age, to impact perceptions and reactions. This presents important design considerations and implications for digital human systems, in terms of explicitly leaning into, or pushing against, such stereotypes.