2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

The Effects of Appearance Change on Facial Impressions and Implicit Bias: A study of the Proteus Effect Using Self-Facial Morphing Images

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	21K03150
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Review Section	Basic Section 10040:Experimental psychology-related
Research Institution	Shizuoka Eiwa Gakuin University
Principal Investigator	Nagayama Rutsuko 静岡英和学院大学, 人間社会学部, 教授 (40326434)
Project Period (FY)	2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
Keywords	平均顔 / プロテウス効果 / 偏見 / 人種 / IAT / 不気味の谷 / VR / アバター
Outline of Final Research Achievements	This study examined the effects of morphing techniques on facial impressions and implicit bias by changing facial appearance and skin color. In addition, the proteus effects of avatar appearance changes on bias and behavior were examined. Average faces were created by combining participants' faces (self-face) with faces of different races. Experiment 1 examined the effect of the self-face on average face impressions by race. The results showed that impressions were lower for average faces that resembled themselves. This suggests that the uncanny valley phenomenon may have occurred for the self-face. Experiment 2 suggested an aversive tendency toward other races on the IAT. Experiment 3 showed that the assumed competence may be a valid indicator of implicit bias. Experiment 4 showed that the self-face group showed higher body ownership for avatars under VR conditions in which realistic average faces were changed to avatar faces. This suggests the proteus effect.
Free Research Field	認知心理学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	ここ数年，日本国内でも外国人が増加してきたことからも，他人種顔への認知について検討することは，ひいては人種差別的偏見の軽減への提言にもつながると考えられる。アバターの外見を変えることによって，ユーザの考え方や行動に影響を与えるプロテウス効果を扱ったこれまでの研究は，VR環境下における身体拡張研究として工学的領域から研究されてきており，心理的観点から検討されたものはほとんどない。本研究の学術的独自性は，顔の外見を自己顔から他人顔へ変化させる方法論を用いる点である。その技術を用いて，肌の色などの外見的属性を変化させ，顔の印象と潜在的偏見について検討するという点が本研究の学術的創造性の１つである。