The Avatar Dressing Room is part of an experience that is meant to test how team dynamics can be improved using a virtual reality environment. Influenced by Edward de Bono’s Six Hats Methodology, the purpose is to improve team dynamics and outcomes of brainstorming and ideation sessions by having every participant act in a different role.

Every participant is assigned a different well-known cartoon character as their avatar. Each participant enters their specific virtual reality Avatar Dressing Room. In the Dressing Room, a set of activities were designed to strengthen the participants’ connection to their avatar’s characteristics. These activities are designed to create and strengthen two well documented effects in virtual reality avatars. The first is embodiment – the experience of perceiving oneself inside a body that interacts with the environment, and more specifically, a body that feels “ours” and moves according to our intentions. Embodiment ensures that the participants feel physically linked to their avatars. The second is the Proteus effect, a phenomenon where an individual’s behavior conforms to their digital self-representation, independent of how others perceive them.

Increasing the Proteus effect ensures that the participants will bring the characteristics of their avatar into the subsequent brainstorming session – to which participants will continue from the dressing room.