One of the biggest technology buzzwords for 2023 is “metaverse,” which refers to the next generation of the Internet, built upon interconnected and interoperable virtual worlds that can host an unlimited number of users who can seamlessly interact with each other and traverse between these virtual worlds at ease. We conclude that the realism and similarity in an avatar’s appearance is important for embodiment, and that both embodiment and presence are intertwined factors contributing to immersive VR user experience. Additionally, we identified moderate and significant correlations between presence and embodiment, including their subscales. The results indicated that Group 1 experienced higher embodiment with no significant differences in presence scores. The participants were assigned to two groups: Group 1 had avatars based on their own faces, and Group 2 had avatars based on a stranger’s face. We conducted a mixed-method experiment with 23 young adults (10 males, 13 females, mean age: 25.22) involving a VR scene with rich embodiment, a virtual mirror, and interaction with a virtual character. However, research on how the similarity between an avatar’s face and the user’s face affects embodiment and presence is lacking.

Previous research has shown that avatar appearance (e.g., body type, body visibility, and realism) affects the senses of embodiment and presence, which are among the key indicators of successful immersive VR. Interaction in immersive VR entails the use of avatars that represent users. Immersive virtual reality (VR) based on head-mounted displays has been identified as one of the key interaction technologies of the future metaverse, which comprises diverse interconnected virtual worlds and users who traverse between those worlds and interact with each other.

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