Publikation
Rendering Togetherness: Embodied Social Synchronization in Multi-User VR
Julia Ayache; Julien Laroche; Maxime Hérissé; Pierre Jean; Anna Katharina Hebborn; Didier Stricker; Benoit G. Bardy
In: 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR-2025), Pages 696-705, IEEE, 2025.
Zusammenfassung
Implementing multi-person interactions in Virtual Reality (VR) poses two interrelated challenges: (1) accurately capturing and rendering the kinematics of social interactions, and (2) fostering social connectedness, a key component of effective group communication. In physical settings, social connectedness is closely linked to interpersonal motor coordination. Whether similar mechanisms operate in VR, and how best to render them remains an open question. This study investigated group synchronization in VR by manipulating two key factors: visual coupling and joint commitment to synchronize, both known to influence group synchrony and social connectedness. Data from this VR experiment were compared with a previous study conducted in a real-world setting. In both contexts, visual coupling and joint commitment enhanced group synchrony and the feeling of social connectedness. However, their effects on individual kinematic features (e.g., movement frequency and amplitude) diverged between real and virtual environments, suggesting different coordination strategies were employed. These findings demonstrate that while multi-user VR can support the emergence of collective movement and foster social bonds, technical constraints, such as limited motion fidelity and restricted field of view, can shape how users adapt their movements to achieve joint action. This has important theoretical and practical implications for the design and modeling of collective motion in VR.