Audio Matters Too: How Audial Avatar Customization Enhances Visual Avatar Customization
This research addresses avatar customization in digital applications, showing incremental insights by highlighting the role of audial elements alongside visual ones.
The study investigated whether audial avatar customization provides similar benefits as visual customization in a Java programming game, finding that audial choice enhances outcomes like avatar identification and autonomy primarily when visual choice is available, but has weaker effects than visual customization.
Avatar customization is known to positively affect crucial outcomes in numerous domains. However, it is unknown whether audial customization can confer the same benefits as visual customization. We conducted a preregistered 2 x 2 (visual choice vs. visual assignment x audial choice vs. audial assignment) study in a Java programming game. Participants with visual choice experienced higher avatar identification and autonomy. Participants with audial choice experienced higher avatar identification and autonomy, but only within the group of participants who had visual choice available. Visual choice led to an increase in time spent, and indirectly led to increases in intrinsic motivation, immersion, time spent, future play motivation, and likelihood of game recommendation. Audial choice moderated the majority of these effects. Our results suggest that audial customization plays an important enhancing role vis-à-vis visual customization. However, audial customization appears to have a weaker effect compared to visual customization. We discuss the implications for avatar customization more generally across digital applications.