title: Body Image and Anti-Fat Attitudes: An Experimental Study Using a Haptic Virtual Reality Environment to Replicate Human Touch.
abstract: It is well documented that anti-fat attitudes influence the interactions individuals have with overweight people. However, testing attitudes through self-report measures is challenging. In the present study, we explore the use of a haptic virtual reality environment to physically interact with overweight virtual human (VH). We verify the hypothesis that duration and strength of virtual touch vary according to the characteristics of VH in ways similar to those encountered from interaction with real people in anti-fat attitude studies. A group of 61 participants were randomly assigned to one of the experimental conditions involving giving a virtual hug to a female or a male VH of either normal or overweight. We found significant associations between body image satisfaction and anti-fat attitudes and sex differences on these measures. We also found a significant interaction effect of the sex of the participants, sex of the VH, and the body size of the VH. Female participants hugged longer the overweight female VH than overweight male VH. Male participants hugged longer the normal-weight VH than the overweight VH. We conclude that virtual touch is a promising method of measuring attitudes, emotion and social interactions.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, School of Human Kinetics, Laurentian University , Sudbury, Canada .
authors.forename: Line
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tremblay
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, School of Human Kinetics, Laurentian University , Sudbury, Canada .
authors.forename: Mélina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Roy-Vaillancourt
authors.affiliation: 2 School of Engineering, Laurentian University, Greater Sudbury, Canada .
authors.forename: Brahim
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chebbi
authors.affiliation: 3 Department of Psychology, Université du Québec en Outaouais , Gatineau, Canada .
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bouchard
authors.affiliation: 2 School of Engineering, Laurentian University, Greater Sudbury, Canada .
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Daoust
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, School of Human Kinetics, Laurentian University , Sudbury, Canada .
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dénommée
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, School of Human Kinetics, Laurentian University , Sudbury, Canada .
authors.forename: Moriah
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thorpe
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D049628:Body Size; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D050177:Overweight / Q000523:psychology*; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012737:Sex Factors; D014110:Touch; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult