Abstract
Over the years, the virtual space has been changing, and the skills acquired by users have been improved, and the avatars, as well as the settings, have graphically become more and more sophisticated. In virtual reality, the avatar without an appropriate animation would move in jerks in a disharmonious way similar to a robot, but endowing it with a particular postural animation, you make a conscious choice of what information you want to transfer with its appearance and its posture. In recent years, research has focused on the study of communication and its importance. The purpose of this contribution is to analyze the animations present in Second Life trying to trace a socio-psychological picture of the non-verbal communication process in a virtual environment.
TopIntroduction
In the 16th century, even Leonardo da Vinci became interested in “interpersonal intelligence” and the importance of observing the behavior of others. Here is what he advised the young artist:
“Be vague often times in your strolling to see and consider the sites and acts of men in speaking, contending, laughing or fighting together, what acts are in them, and what acts do the surrounding people, dividers or viewers of these things”.
In this trace left by Leonardo we discover all the importance of observation, which allows us to grasp important aspects both within people and within the environment, which surrounds us. Participant observation is, in fact, a methodology that was used in the investigation described in this essay
Virtual worlds have hardly been studied by the academic world and it is not easy to find references to compare this work with. This essay wants to impact on the potential of this world, which is believed to stimulate a lot of thoughts on relational processes but also, as will be seen, on communication processes. The author, starting from her own didactic experience in the field of communication and combining it with participant observation started years ago in the virtual world, decided to examine:
- 1.
What connection exists between the real, or physical, world and the virtual world with respect to communication processes and whether either of the two worlds influences the other;
- 2.
Whether there is a breakdown of the stereotypes of Non-Verbal Communication that, learned in the course of one's life, are activated spontaneously in the real world and if, instead, they are translated into the virtual world or completely abandoned.
Thanks to participant observation, three areas in which the aforementioned communication has developed strongly in recent years were explored:
The final purpose of this contribution, starting from the observation of the virtual world most frequented by adults, is to demonstrate the potential of this world to be useful for future projects dedicated to social actors as young people, not only adults, as observed in this survey.
Young people could acquire, by playing, greater awareness of the importance of communication, in particular, non-verbal, without excluding the possibility of involving them in acquiring the knowledge of new professional skills aimed at programming in virtual environment.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Builder: Who creates objects in virtual worlds.
Linden Dollar: The Linden Dollar (L $) is the virtual currency used as a bargaining chip in the Second Life economy.
Second Life: An online digital electronic virtual world (MUVE) launched on June 23, 2003 by the American company Linden Lab following an idea of the latter's founder, physicist Philip Rosedale. It is an IT platform in the new media sector that integrates synchronous and asynchronous communication tools and finds application in multiple fields of creativity: entertainment, art, education, music, cinema, role playing, architecture, programming, business, etc.
Skin: A texture that is applied to your classic avatar body and head. Skins provide flesh tones, makeup, and fine shading detail.
Script: Created through an in-world editor similar to a text file editor. Key words that perform specific actions or run when an action is performed are highlighted. The language used to write scripts is Linden Scripting Language (LSL), and is an event-oriented programming language.
Avatar: A representative of a real person in the virtual world.
Animation Override: Second Life animations are frequently triggered by scripts in order to achieve a variety of effects such as walking, sitting and flying animations, as well as dances, handshakes, hugs, or other things.
Voice Chat: Communication optionally by voice.
Gestures: A type of inventory item that trigger your avatar to animate, play sounds, and/or emit text chat.