AvatarsUsersRelationshipsAffect
Four questions the lab asks about people online. The name is the framework: how people show up, who is in the room, how they connect, and what it feels like — across platforms, games, and virtual worlds.
A — AVATARS
Avatars
How people show up when the body is rendered.
What does an avatar carry — posture, gaze, proximity, identity — that a profile photo can’t?
Virtual environments · social VR
The lab in four dimensions
A — AVATARS
Avatars
How people show up when the body is rendered.
Virtual environments · social VR → U — USERSUsers
Who is in the room, and who gets left out.
Streaming · virtual meetings → R — RELATIONSHIPSRelationships
How connection forms across a screen.
Streaming · shared rooms → A — AFFECTAffect
What it feels like — measured honestly.
Computational methods · all settings →Where we study it
The research settings are the where. AURA is the what. Each setting foregrounds some dimensions more than others; methods measure all four.
Virtual EnvironmentsVRChat, social VR, 3D worlds
AvatarsUsersRelationshipsAffect
Streaming Platforms22M-row Twitch chat corpus
AvatarsUsersRelationshipsAffect
Virtual MeetingsBeyond Meet Space · NSF FW-HTF-R
AvatarsUsersRelationshipsAffect
Computational MethodsTASS · v2v R · Quarto
measures all four