Welcome to the next revolution in experimental setups.
Performing studies requiring confederates can be challenging or even limit experimental design. We’ve been training or Virtual Humans to work as confederates. Our Virtual Confederates product line designed specifically for the research community helps address many of the difficulties in using confederates. Virtual Confederates can also leverage the power and flexibility of virtual reality to make possible studies that could not realistically be done before.
Benefits
Consistent performance
Virtual Confederates deliver the same performance every time. They do not get tired or have bad days. There are not even any subtle differences that could introduce a hidden confound. This provides a new level of consistency between exposures and participants.
Repeatability
Reproducing an experiment, whether running extra participants in the same lab or reproducing in another lab or culture, is at best difficult. Personnel come and go, but Virtual Confederates are always there for you.
Confederate appearance
Studying impact does the appearance of people on some factor? Virtual Confederates are the perfect chameleon. You can change race, shape, or even make virtual confederates look like the participant.
Emotional control and consistency
Even actors cannot provide the level of emotionally control and consistency of Virtual Confederates. Perfect the emotional delivery during production and then let your worries go.
Always Available
No more scheduling nightmares. Virtual Confederates are always available when you need them.
Cost
Virtual Confederates incur an upfront cost, but then can be used as often as you require and adapted for use in follow-up studies. Actors are expensive, particular if you require more than a single confederate or the experimental design necessitates many hours. Virtual Confederates costs scale very well.
Ecological Validity
Move your experiment virtually out of the lab into the situation you really want to explore. Virtual environments and situations can be almost anything.
Scalability
Need 10 confederates, 100? Virtual Confederates scale very well.
Dangerous Situations
By going virtual, dangerous situations are physically mitigated. Virtual Confederates are willing to get into any situation that your Ethics committee might approve.
Standardized setups
We have prepared standard experimental setups of classic tests using our Virtual Confederates.
virtual Trier Social Stress Test (vTSST)
These setups follow the classical experimental setup, but with as much flexibility as possible. For instance, in virtual Asch you can select the number of seats, positioning of the participant, which Virtual Confederates to use, and use custom stimuli. In the vTSST you control what the panels says and when.
Customizations of our standard setups
Need more flexibility than the standardized setup provides? Whether integrating a different environment, custom dialog/acting, custom procedure, or anything else, our team of experts can work with you to create the perfect setup.
Custom solutions
We will work with you to create the perfect experimental setup for your needs. Contact us to start the conversation.
Licensing
For licensing information please use the contact form or contact virtual.confederate@virtualhumantechnologies.com, providing as much detail as possible.