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  "howItWasMade": "This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text.",
  "whatIsVerbatim": "Only 'quote' fields, figure captions and 'abstract' are the authors' own words. Research questions follow the paper's wording where it states them. Takeaway, summaries, answers, definitions and method are the site's plain-language paraphrase.",
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   "For anything not covered here, read the paper itself: 'fullTextSources' lists free versions first.",
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   "To find other papers by Sean Rintel, use the catalogue at https://seanrintel.com/publications/index.json."
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  "authorship": "Sean Rintel's role on each paper: lead author when he is first author, sole author when he is the only author, and otherwise senior author. Senior author here means the senior researcher on the team, whatever his position in the author list.",
  "howToCite": "Cite the paper, not this file: use 'citation' or the ready-made 'bibtex' (DOI where given) and name every author. Attribute paraphrase to the paper's findings, and use quotation marks only for 'quote' text."
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 "name": "Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings",
 "author": [
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Marta Wilczkowiak"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Marco Gillies"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Xueni Pan"
  },
  {
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   "name": "Sean Rintel",
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 "datePublished": "2022-04",
 "doi": "10.1145/3491101.3519628",
 "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html",
 "citation": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628",
 "bibtex": "@inproceedings{dobre2022nice,\nauthor = {Dobre, Georgiana Cristina and Wilczkowiak, Marta and Gillies, Marco and Pan, Xueni and Rintel, Sean},\ntitle = {Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings},\nbooktitle = {CHI EA 2022},\nyear = {2022},\nmonth = {April},\npublisher = {ACM},\nurl = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628},\ndoi = {10.1145/3491101.3519628},\n}",
 "abstract": "We report a within-subjects study of the effect of realistic and cartoon avatars on communication, task satisfaction, and perceived sense of presence in mixed reality meetings. For 2 − 3 weeks, six groups of co-workers (14 people) held a recurring real work meeting using Microsoft HoloLens2 devices. Each person embodied a personalised full-body avatar with a realistic face and another with a cartoon face. Half the groups started in the realistic condition and the other half started in the cartoon condition; all groups switched conditions half-way. Initial results show that, overall, participants found the realistic avatars’ nonverbal behaviour more appropriate for the interaction and more useful for understanding their colleagues compared to the cartoon one. Regarding the  results over time, we identify different insights for cartoon and realistic avatars based on the type of avatar was embodied first. We discuss the implications of these results for mixed and virtual  reality meetings.",
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 "takeaway": "Realistic avatar faces are not automatically better for communication. In mixed reality work meetings, identical body language seemed more useful on realistic faces. Yet colleagues who started with cartoon faces came to care less about appearance. So designing avatars people accept over time differs from designing ones that look nice.",
 "whyItMatters": {
  "stateOfTheArt": {
   "summary": "Most of what is known about avatar appearance in meetings comes from one-off virtual reality lab studies with strangers, prone to novelty effects.",
   "quote": "most of what we know about avatar appearance in meeting-style settings come from one-off lab studies in virtual reality environments",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  },
  "contribution": {
   "summary": "A longitudinal, within-subjects field study comparing realistic and cartoon full-body avatars in co-workers' real recurring mixed reality meetings.",
   "quote": "To our knowledge, there are no studies comparing different avatar styles over time in immersive environments.",
   "location": "§2.2, p. 3"
  },
  "whoCares": {
   "summary": "Designers of avatars and of mixed and virtual reality meeting systems, and researchers studying avatar acceptance over time.",
   "quote": "The implication is that designing for longitudinal avatar acceptance is different to designing acceptable avatars.",
   "location": "§6, p. 6"
  }
 },
 "researchQuestions": [
  "RQ1: the functional communicative value based on (a) the identification of the other person (people); (b) the perceived authenticity of communications; (c) the perceived usefulness of expression and movement.",
  "RQ2: the task satisfaction based on: (a) level of tasks impact, (b) comfort and (c) engagement.",
  "RQ3: the concept of presence based on: (a) co-presence and (b) social presence."
 ],
 "concepts": [
  {
   "term": "Uncanny Valley",
   "definition": "The theory behind concerns about realistic avatars (affinity later recovers as realism increases further):",
   "quote": "when the avatar gets more realistic, the users' affinity increases until a certain point, after which affinity drops quickly and the avatar makes users feel uneasy",
   "location": "§2.1, p. 2"
  },
  {
   "term": "Novelty effect",
   "definition": "Responses driven by a system being new, which one-off studies cannot separate from lasting effects. Longitudinal studies can.",
   "quote": "we were interested in whether various acceptance ratings for both realistic and cartoon conditions would change over time as the novelty effect wore off",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  },
  {
   "term": "Functional communicative value",
   "definition": "What the authors measured, in three parts:",
   "quote": "the functional communicative value based on (a) the identification of the other person (people); (b) the perceived authenticity of communications; (c) the perceived usefulness of expression and movement",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  }
 ],
 "method": {
  "design": "Within-subjects longitudinal field study: each person used a personalised full-body avatar with a realistic face and one with a cartoon face, and half the groups started with each, switching half-way.",
  "prototype": "A networked mixed reality meeting application built in Unity for Microsoft HoloLens 2. Each person sees a holographic blue table, adjustable to fit their room, with colleagues' avatars placed around it, and a menu to create, join or leave a meeting, mute, and switch avatar. Each participant had two personalised full-body avatars made with Avatar SDK from a head-and-shoulders photo, one with a realistic face and one with a cartoon face. Avatars were animated live from the headset's head and hand tracking, with mouth movement driven by voice loudness and blinking but no gaze. The animation was the same for both styles. The two styles were compared with each other.",
  "prototypeFigure": 1,
  "setting": "Groups' own recurring work meetings (often stand-ups, status reports or catch-ups), held in mixed reality on Microsoft HoloLens 2.",
  "sample": "14 participants (7 female, 6 male, 1 non-binary) from a global technology company, in 6 groups of co-workers who knew each other: 4 dyads and 2 triads.",
  "n": 14,
  "duration": "Two to three weeks (up to ten meetings per group). 54 meetings in total.",
  "analysis": "124 daily questionnaires with 12 items on 1-7 Likert scales. Repeated measures ANOVA on per-participant averages, and regression over time by avatar type and week."
 },
 "findings": [
  {
   "headline": "Same movement, more meaning.",
   "summary": "Co-workers holding their regular meetings in mixed reality rated their colleagues' body language as more appropriate and more useful for understanding them with realistic avatars than with cartoon ones. Both styles were animated in exactly the same way.",
   "quote": "This indicates that the realistic avatars showed a higher functional communicative value based on the perceived authenticity of communication",
   "location": "§5.1, pp. 5–6",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-1-pp-5-6",
   "cite": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628 (§5.1, pp. 5–6)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Otherwise, no significant difference.",
   "summary": "Avatar style made no significant difference to how engaged or comfortable people felt, how much appearance affected their tasks, whether they felt in their colleagues' presence, or whether the avatars seemed only computerised images.",
   "quote": "there is no difference between the two avatars for the level of engagement for themselves",
   "location": "§4.1, p. 5",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s4-1-p-5",
   "cite": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628 (§4.1, p. 5)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Cartoon colleagues became recognisable.",
   "summary": "With cartoon avatars, people got better at identifying their colleagues across meetings. With realistic avatars, identification was high from the start.",
   "quote": "Despite the cartoon appearance, participants learnt to identify their colleagues (who they knew prior to the study) over time.",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6",
   "cite": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628 (§5.2, p. 6)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Starting with cartoons made appearance matter less.",
   "summary": "Groups that began with cartoon avatars said appearance mattered less and less, and the trend continued after they switched to realistic avatars. Groups that began with realistic avatars showed no such trend.",
   "quote": "I feel like I am starting to care less about the avatar's appearance",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6-2",
   "cite": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628 (§5.2, p. 6)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Realism's strangeness faded.",
   "summary": "Groups that began with realistic avatars noticed less obviously unnatural body language from their colleagues' avatars as the first week went on. This may be a recovery from the uncanny valley (the unease people feel when a lifelike figure does not move quite right).",
   "quote": "This was possibly due to a strong initial mismatch between realistic appearance and less realistic behaviour, that participants adjusted to over time.",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6-3",
   "cite": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628 (§5.2, p. 6)"
  }
 ],
 "questions": [
  {
   "question": "Are realistic avatars better than cartoon avatars for work meetings in mixed reality?",
   "answer": "Partly. Co-workers rated realistic avatars' body language as more appropriate and more useful for understanding each other, although the animation was identical. Engagement, comfort, task impact and co-presence did not differ significantly between styles.",
   "source": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.1, pp. 5–6",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-1-pp-5-6"
    },
    {
     "location": "§4.1, p. 5",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s4-1-p-5"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Do people get used to avatars over repeated meetings?",
   "answer": "Initial results suggest so, which is why first impressions can mislead. Over repeated meetings, cartoon avatars became easier to recognise and appearance mattered less for people who started with cartoons. The unnaturalness of realistic avatars faded for those who started with them.",
   "source": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6-2"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6-3"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Does the order in which you use avatar styles matter?",
   "answer": "It may. Over repeated meetings, trends depended on which style people used first, not on style alone. Starting with realistic avatars may create a strong mismatch between lifelike looks and less lifelike movement that people adjust to. Those starting with cartoons were already used to the movement when they switched.",
   "source": "Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6-2"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 6",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings.html#at-s5-2-p-6-3"
    }
   ]
  }
 ],
 "cites": [],
 "quantitative": [
  {
   "measure": "Sample",
   "value": "14 participants in 6 groups; 54 meetings; 124 daily questionnaire responses",
   "location": "§3, p. 3"
  },
  {
   "measure": "Nonverbal behaviour appropriate for the context (Q11), realistic vs cartoon",
   "value": "F (1, 13) = 7.14, p=.019, η 2 = .355",
   "location": "§4.1, p. 4"
  },
  {
   "measure": "Nonverbal behaviour useful for understanding colleagues (Q12), realistic vs cartoon",
   "value": "F (1, 13) = 5.5, p=.036, η 2 = .296",
   "location": "§4.1, p. 5"
  },
  {
   "measure": "Identifying colleagues (Q8), realistic vs cartoon (not significant)",
   "value": "F (1, 13) = 3.53, p = .08, η 2 = .217",
   "location": "§4.1, p. 5"
  },
  {
   "measure": "Appearance mattered less over time (Q6): cartoon in week 1; realistic in week 2",
   "value": "p = 0.002; p = 0.005",
   "location": "§4.2, p. 5"
  }
 ],
 "implications": [
  {
   "summary": "The study raises the possibility that lifelike avatars should not be assumed to be the only valuable endpoint for real work meetings. What people find nice is not the same as what helps communication.",
   "quote": "what people consider to be nice for an avatar does not equate to the communicative good that it provides",
   "location": "§6, p. 6"
  },
  {
   "summary": "Longitudinal studies help overcome novelty effects in avatar research.",
   "quote": "This demonstrates the value of longitudinal studies in overcoming novelty effects.",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 6"
  }
 ],
 "limitations": [
  {
   "summary": "Participants had varied prior mixed reality experience, and the sample was too small to test whether that influenced responses.",
   "quote": "Due to the small number of participants we could not be test whether the prior MR experience of some participants influenced their responses.",
   "location": "§5, p. 5"
  },
  {
   "summary": "All participants worked at a large tech company and may be more accepting of innovations in virtual environments."
  },
  {
   "summary": "These are initial results from the daily questionnaires only. Telemetry and focus group data were left for future work."
  }
 ],
 "figures": [
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings/fig-2.webp",
   "caption": "Figure 2: Boxplots for each question grouped by the research question (RQ) and separated by the type of avatar.The y-axis shows the rating (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree).",
   "alt": "Boxplots of 1-7 agreement ratings for 12 questions under RQ1, RQ2 and RQ3, cartoon versus realistic avatars. Realistic is higher for nonverbal behaviour being appropriate (Q11) and useful (Q12).",
   "location": "Fig. 2, p. 4",
   "credit": "Figure 2 from Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628"
  },
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings/fig-3.webp",
   "caption": "Figure 3: Scatter plots showing the questionnaire ratings over time. The y-axis in all graphs shows the rating (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). The x-axis represents the meetings in a chronological order. W1: Week 1; W2: week 2. Q: question. The line is the linear regression, coloured orange for the statistically significant and purple for the non-significant.",
   "alt": "Ten scatter plots of ratings across meetings with regression lines: identifying colleagues rises with cartoon avatars, appearance mattering falls for cartoon in week 1 and realistic in week 2, and unnatural behaviour falls for realistic in week 1.",
   "location": "Fig. 3, p. 5",
   "credit": "Figure 3 from Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628"
  },
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/nice-is-different-than-good-longitudinal-communicative-effects-of-realistic-and-cartoon-avatars-in-real-mixed-reality-work-meetings/fig-1.webp",
   "caption": "Figure 1: Example of realistic (a,c) and cartoon (b,d) avatar upper bodies. The main menu controlling the session (e). A meeting between two participants in realistic avatars (f) and three in cartoon avatars (g) with the adjustable blue table marking the centre.",
   "alt": "Realistic and cartoon avatar heads, a floating session menu, and avatars of remote colleagues standing in an office as seen through a mixed reality headset.",
   "location": "Figure 1, p. 1",
   "credit": "Figure 1 from Georgiana Cristina Dobre, Marta Wilczkowiak, Marco Gillies, Xueni Pan, and Sean Rintel. 2022. Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings. CHI EA 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519628"
  }
 ],
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 "verified": "2026-10-25",
 "studyFigure": {
  "about": "The opening figure on this paper's page, made for the site with AI assistance from this verified brief. It is not the paper's own figure. Evidence entries index this file's quantitative, findings and limitations arrays.",
  "study": {
   "kind": "comparison",
   "summary": "Within-subjects field study with 14 employees of a global technology company, in 6 groups of co-workers. Over two to three weeks, the groups held 54 recurring work meetings in mixed reality as avatars, switching face style halfway.",
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     "title": "Make two avatars",
     "text": "A head and shoulders photo generates two full-body avatars for each person, one with a realistic face and one with a cartoon face.",
     "part": true
    },
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     "title": "Meet at a hologram table",
     "text": "Wearing a HoloLens 2 headset, each person sees a holographic table, adjusted to fit the room, with colleagues' avatars placed around it."
    },
    {
     "title": "Animate live",
     "text": "The headset's head and hand tracking move the avatar. Its mouth moves with voice loudness and its eyes blink."
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     "title": "Switch avatar",
     "text": "A menu lets each person create, join or leave a meeting, mute, and switch between the two avatars.",
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   "note": "Both face styles were animated in exactly the same way, with no gaze."
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      },
      {
       "dir": "flat",
       "text": "Realistic faces: engagement, comfort and presence were about the same as with cartoon faces.",
       "detail": "Self-reported. Nor was there a reliable difference in how much appearance affected tasks, or whether avatars seemed only computerised images.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[1]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    },
    {
     "title": "Changes over repeated meetings",
     "sub": "trends by face style and by starting style",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Cartoon faces: people got better at identifying colleagues across meetings.",
       "detail": "Self-reported. With realistic faces, identification was high from the start. Averaged over all meetings, the styles did not differ reliably, p = .08.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[2]",
        "quantitative[3]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Cartoon faces: groups that started with them said appearance mattered less and less.",
       "detail": "Self-reported, p = 0.002. The trend continued after these groups switched to realistic faces, p = 0.005. Groups that started with realistic faces showed no such trend.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[3]",
        "quantitative[4]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Realistic faces: groups starting with them noticed less unnatural movement during week one.",
       "detail": "Self-reported. The authors suggest an early mismatch between lifelike looks and less lifelike movement, which people adjusted to.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[4]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    }
   ]
  },
  "keyTerm": "functional communicative value",
  "takeaway": "An avatar's functional communicative value can differ from how nice it looks. Over repeated mixed reality work meetings, people may adjust to avatar appearance, so designing for acceptance over time differs from designing appealing avatars."
 }
}