Invisible disabilities in social virtual reality: revealed or not?

Social virtual reality games and apps, such as VRChat, AltspaceVR, and Rec Room, are immersive 3D experiences that allow people with disabilities – both visible and non-visual – to experience activities that may not be available to them in the non-virtual world.

In those settings, researchers from Cornell University found that the decision to disclose an invisible disability — a physical, mental or neurological condition that is not visible from the outside but can limit or challenge a person’s movements, senses or activities — is personal.

“A lot of people want to control how representations of their disability are shared, depending on the context,” said Andrea Stevenson-Won, assistant professor of communications in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Won and Sherry Azencott, associate professor at the Technion-Cornell Jacobs Institute at Cornell Technion and Technion, are lead authors of “‘I Try to Represent Myself as I Am’: Self-Presentation Preferences of People with Invisible Disabilities through Embodied Social Virtual Reality Avatars.” , which was the introduction in ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Origins ’24), held October 27-30 in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Rhea Gualano, a communications doctoral student, and Lucy Jiang, MA ’24, are lead authors. Other contributors included Kexin Zhang, MS ’23, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Tanisha Shinde, a student at Oberlin College.

In the United States, approximately 33 million people – 10% of the population – have an invisible disability, ranging from physical (such as multiple sclerosis or chronic pain) to mental and emotional (such as dyslexia or depression). Many individuals with these types of disabilities do not use assistive technologies, or use devices that are not readily apparent.

In social virtual reality, an environment in which users can choose how their avatars represent them, the decision to announce to the virtual world that they have a disability is up to individuals.

“It definitely seems like experienced users use social VR differently than novice users,” said Won, whose virtual avatar lab focuses, among other things, on representing avatars. “But I think decisions about disclosure will always be context-driven for many people.”

In this study, researchers interviewed 15 people with 1 to 3 invisible disabilities, representing 22 different disabilities in total. Questions included: “Do you represent or hide your invisible disability in social VR in any way?” and “How similar is your avatar to your physical personality?”

The interviewer then asked whether participants would be interested in representing their disability/invisible disabilities in social VR, and discussed how context might influence this decision.

They then explored the importance of context in hypothetical and non-hypothetical disclosure. Questions included: “In the non-virtual world, how do you navigate disability disclosure?” And do you consider the representation of your avatar to be the same or different in different settings?”

They found that people with invisible disabilities base their decisions about whether or not to use avatar-based disclosure based on context and their experiences. For example, some users of social VR have wished to use facial expressions and body language, for example, to dynamically represent their energy level or desire to engage with others. Others preferred to remain anonymous about their disability, regardless of the context.

Based on a variety of responses, the researchers found that people with invisible disabilities preferred to adopt subtle, symbolic methods of disclosure, such as clothing designs (personalized disability-related graphics) and accessories (a giant spoon, a symbol of sustenance and support for children). People suffering from chronic diseases).

Researchers identify three patterns of social disclosure in VR:

• Activist: Always open to disclosure in order to spread education and awareness.
• Situational disclosure: is sometimes open to disclosure, and relies on context cues to make disclosure decisions; and
• Non-discloser: prefers to hide their disability at all times.

In addition, some social VR users have used public representations of their disability to raise awareness about their disability. Others preferred to use private representations of their invisible disability, to assert their identity without necessarily revealing it to other social VR users.

Unlike people with visible disabilities, the researchers wrote, “people with non-visible disabilities have unique experiences of needing to choose to effectively represent their disability in both non-virtual and virtual settings.”