UNASSIGNED: Electronic health (eHealth) has been widely adopted in chronic disease management. Prior studies focused on time-based reminders as a cue to facilitate behavior change intentions, ignoring the development of automatic cue-behavior associations via other cue types.
UNASSIGNED: Hence, this study utilized avatar appearance as a visual-based cue to help establish the automatic association between appearance transformation and health behavior to form habits without intention.
UNASSIGNED: To better understand users\' attitudes and experiences toward applying changes in avatar appearance to develop cue-behavior associations for hypertensive patients. Fifteen participants were recruited in a 14-day experiment. After excluding one participant who dropped out of the experiment, others were randomly assigned to two groups. One group consisted of a visual-based cue (a virtual plant) and basic behavior change techniques (BCTs). The other group only included basic BCTs. Attitudes and experience outcomes were collected by interview, and qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis.
UNASSIGNED: 57% of participants had been diagnosed with hypertension for more than five years, and more than 50% of participants have experience using mobile apps or wearables. 66% of participants did physical activity more than three times every week. The result shows that tailored time-based reminders, blood pressure monitoring, and daily dietary intake were the most attractive features. Additionally, hypertensive participants have positive attitudes toward avatar appearance as a visual-based cue to develop cue-behavior association, which enhances self-management motivation.
UNASSIGNED: This study proposes a visual-based cue design for habit formation and conducts a qualitative method to explore hypertensive patients\' perceptions. The findings offer insights from user\'s perspectives into hypertensive patients\' attitudes toward visual-based cues and perception of the connection between avatar appearance and health behavior for self-management. Subsequent discussions present eHealth design guidelines of habit formation from intention, automatic cue-behavior association, and self-management perspectives.

Popularization of knowledge is of considerable importance and necessity, and traditional knowledge popularization activities suffer from high cost and low acceptance, which affect their effectiveness and coverage. Applying virtual avatars to educational videos may be an effective way to solve the problem. This study investigates the impact of applying virtual avatars to educational videos on user experience. Constructed a model of the impact of user experience on educational videos with virtual avatars, collected data from the target population, and analyzed it empirically. The video quality and virtual avatar expressiveness dimensions of the influencing factors have a significant positive effect on the learning effect, emotional experience and user engagement dimensions of user experience; the content quality dimension of the influencing factors has a significant negative effect on the three dimensions of user experience. The video quality and virtual avatar expressiveness dimensions of the influencing factors have a significant positive effect on the learning effect, emotional experience and user engagement dimensions of user experience; the content quality dimension of the influencing factors has a significant negative effect on the three dimensions of user experience.

This research explored the influencing factors of gender swapping among female players in online games and their impact on online gaming behavior. Based on an online survey of 3,658 female players in China, we found that perceived benefits and the Tanbi tendency, a psychological indulgence in enjoying novels, comics, or series on love and sex between attractive males, were the most important factors for female players to employ male avatars. Sexual orientation, perceived anonymity, and perceived tolerance also had a significant influence on gender swapping. Different from the practical benefits perceived by men who use female avatars in online games, the perceived benefit for female players who use male avatars was to avoid gender discrimination. In order to obtain more freedom and fairer treatment, they chose male avatars for a better experience. Female players with a higher degree of gender swapping showed a stronger aggressiveness and dominant \"hyper-masculinity\" behavior tendency in the game. Though online virtual worlds may be a convenient place for females to experience gender equality through gender swapping, the findings of this study suggest that gender swapping in games may, to some extent, perpetuate or even reinforce gender stereotypes in the real world.

The present study aimed to examine the effects of a novel avatar interviewing aid during memory interviews with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Thirty children were recruited for our study (Age: M = 7.60, SD = 0.68), half with ASD (13 boys; 2 girls) and the other half being neurotypical (13 boys; 2 girls). Children participated in a target event and were subsequently interviewed a week later by either an avatar interviewer or a human. The participants were also asked six misleading questions aimed to examine their suggestibility. Bayesian analysis showed some increase in memory performance for both groups of children interviewed by the avatar interviewer, and this effect exacerbated for children with ASD. These results showed encouraging implications for future applications.