Moderators of Social Facilitation Effect in Virtual Reality: Co-presence and Realism of Virtual Agents.

Social facilitation has been researched for decades, but in the face of the development of virtual reality technology, new questions arise regarding the possibility of its occurrence in this environment -in the presence of computer-generated agents. Past research provided inconclusive answers: several experiments confirmed this possibility, but several others disagreed. On the other hand, previous studies have shown the important role of VR characteristics, such as realism or co-presence, in evoking other psychological phenomena.