E . Virtual stimuli and environment. Panel (a) shows participant’s perspective
E . Virtual stimuli and environment. Panel (a) shows participant’s viewpoint when a virtual agent (e.g an adult male) frontally appeared. A straight dashed white line placed around the floor traced the path that participants and PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24367588 virtual agents followed throughout both approachconditions. Panel (b) shows (in the left) the other virtual stimuli applied: a cylinder, an adult woman, and an antrophomorphicrobot. doi:0.37journal.pone.05.gPLOS A single plosone.orgReaching and Comfort Distance in Virtual Social Interactionsthey had no unique preference but disliked particularly the virtual male plus the cylinder. The majority of male participants indicated they found specifically pleasant their practical experience with virtual females but not with virtual males. At the ending, the experimenter measured the length (cm) of participants’ dominant arm from the acromion to the extremity of the middle finger.Data analysisWe measured the distance at which the participants stopped themselves or the virtual stimuli based on the process (Reachability or Comfort distance) and also the situation (Active or Passive). The IVR MLN1117 technique tracked the participants’ position at a price of about 8 Hz. The pc recorded participant’s position inside the virtual area by constantly computing the distance between the marker placed on participants’ HMD and virtual stimuli. In each situation, this tracking technique allowed to record the participantvirtual stimulus distance (in cm). Participant’s arm length was then subtracted in the mean distance. Inside each and every block and for every sort of stimulus the mean participantvirtual stimulus distance was then computed. The mean distances obtained within the various experimental conditions were compared by way of a fourway ANOVA including participants’ Gender as betweenparticipant factor and Distance (ReachabilityComfort distance), Method (PassiveActive method), and Virtual stimuli (male, female, cylinder, robot) as withinparticipant element. Bonferroni posthoc test was employed to analyze important effects. The magnitude of the impact sizes was expressed by partial eta squared (g2p).Figure two. Interaction distanceapproach condition. Mean (cm) reachabilitydistance and comfortdistance as a function of passive active approachconditions. doi:0.37journal.pone.05.gResultsStatistical evaluation revealed a substantial effect of Gender (F(, 34) .250, p,0.002, g2p 0.25), resulting from all round distance from virtual stimuli being bigger in females (M 58.02 cm, SD 36.43 cm ) than males (M 36.58 cm, SD 29.84 cm). The variable Distance was not substantial (F(, 34) .926, p 0.7: Reachabilitydistance 43.57 cm, SD 30.49; Comfortdistance 5.03 cm, SD 39.7). A major impact of your variable Method emerged (F(, 34) 36.525, p,0.000, g2p 0.52), with participants keeping a larger distance in Passive (M 6.20 cm, SD 45.8 cm) than Active (M 33.40 cm, SD 25.02 cm) situation. A primary impact of Virtual stimuli appeared (F(3, 02) 27.903, p,0.00, g2p 0.45). Posthoc evaluation showed that participants kept a bigger distance from the cylinder (64.55 cm) than other stimuli (male 45.five cm, female 35.80 cm, robot 46.09 cm, all ps ,0.00), and a smaller sized distance from virtual females than other stimuli (all ps ,0.05). No distinction was found in between virtual robot and male (p ). The ANOVA 
showed a considerable Distance 6 Strategy interaction: (F(, 34) .96, p,0.00, g2p 0.26, see Figure two). Reachabilitydistance was larger within the Passive than Active strategy (p,0.05). Comfortdistance.
