The Avatar Dressing Room - a VR environment for strengthening physical and psychological embodiment with avatars

With the rise of remote teams, there is an increasing need for effective ways to foster positive team dynamics and outcomes across distances. One tool created for enhancing team dynamics is the Six Hats method, which encourages team members to tackle problems from various perspectives, each symbolized by a different colored hat [4]. Inspired by this method, we propose a VR meeting environment where members embody avatars with distinct characteristics and perspectives, enabling spatial and interpersonal dynamics. To increase the physical and psychological embodiment of participants with their avatars, we introduce the Avatar Dressing Room (ADR) - a modular virtual dressing room space for participants to gradually embody their avatars and adopt their characteristics. This poster presents the design of the ADR spaces and space components. A preliminary evaluation offers insights into fine tuning characteristics of the space, avatar choices, and durations to maximize the effectiveness of the ADR.