Avatars and Conflicting Guidance in Mixed Reality

At the 2026 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX '26), held June 9–11, 2026 in Athlone, Ireland, the paper "Behavioral and Perceptual Responses to 3D Character and Volumetric Avatars Under Conflicting Guidance in Mixed Reality" was presented in Paper Session 1: Social Presence.

The study examines how an embodied advisor's visual representation affects user trust and behavior when guidance is delivered in real time in Mixed Reality (MR). In the experimental paradigm, two co-present agents represent the same advisor and give step-by-step instructions containing predefined disagreements, letting the researchers observe how users resolve conflicting guidance. A within-subjects study compared a volumetric avatar with a high-fidelity 3D character avatar, keeping identity and expressive behavior constant, and measured trust, social presence, and behavioral adherence during the contradictory steps.

The findings offer insight into how avatar fidelity shapes whether users defer to or resist an advisor when signals conflict, informing the design of embodied agents for MR task-guidance systems.

Further details can be found in the publication: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3788851.3805007