Katja Zibrek

Abstract
Immersive technologies have seen a great expansion in the last
decade and researchers from several disciplines have focused on
exploring virtual reality and the way it can affect human percep-
tion. Virtual reality is a unique medium which has the ability to
transfer the user from the physical environment to a digitally cre-
ated illusion of space, events and interactions which mimic real
life. In this paper, some basic concepts of perception in virtual
reality are introduced, followed by the summary of our research
which primarily focused on the perception of virtual agents. Our
method is based on the concept of interpersonal distance when
people meet in social settings and where the distances they keep
between each other signal the nature of their relationship. We
studied these distances to evaluate realism, attractiveness and
even personality traits of virtual agents in virtual reality. We
discuss how our results can give valuable insights into the hu-
man mind and how we can use this knowledge for training and
rehabilitation applications in virtual reality.