Abstract
Recently, we can use avatars in Virtual reality (VR). A psychological effect of the avatar's appearance on user's behavior and cognition is called as the Proteus effect. However, few studies on the Proteus effect on brain activities have been reported. The present study investigated the modulation of event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants performed a gambling task in a VR casino using two different avatars. One avatar dressed appropriately for the casino and the other did not. We did not observe significant difference in the performance of the task among the avatars. On the other hand, P200 and P300 components, which are kinds of visual ERP components, showed significantly larger amplitudes in an appropriately dressed avatar for the casino than in the other avatar. P200 components relate to the early stage of visual processing. This result indicated that the Proteus effect influences the early stage of neural processing.
