A scoping review of nonverbal mimicry in human-virtual human interaction

A growing body of research has focused on examining the role of nonverbal mimicry, the spontaneous imitation of others’ physical behavior during social interactions, in human-virtual human interaction. The increasing deployment of virtual humans, and growing advancements in technology vital to virtual human development, emphasize the necessity to review studies incorporating such state-of-the-art technologies. To this end, we conducted a scoping review of empirical work studying nonverbal mimicry in human-virtual human interaction. This review focused on outlining (1) the contexts in which such interactions occurred, (2) implementations of nonverbal mimicry, (3) individual and situational factors that can lead one to mimic more (facilitators) or less (inhibitors), and (4) individual and social consequences. By creating this comprehensive outline, we were able to capture the current state of nonverbal mimicry research, and identify methodological, evidence, and empirical research gaps, that may serve as future guidelines to drive the ↓eld of virtual human research forward.