Augmented conversations: AR face filters for facilitating comfortable in-person interactions

Individuals with social anxiety often experience heightened anxiety during face-to-face conversations due to their fear of negative judgments when perceiving neutral facial expressions from others. This research aims to alleviate this anxiety by introducing a novel approach that involves overlaying visual effects onto the conversation partner via an augmented reality head-mounted display. We developed an AR application for HoloLens 2, allowing users to overlay either an anime-style avatar or a smiling face photo during in-person interactions. We conducted a user study where participants engaged in dyadic conversations using our AR application. 29 participants compared three conditions: control, anime-style avatar, and smiling face photo. The findings reveal two significant outcomes: (1) overlaying an anime-style avatar onto the conversation partner enhances conversational comfort, and (2) individuals with pronounced social interaction anxiety and intense fear of negative evaluation benefit from our AR-based system. This research presents possibilities for practical solutions that could improve the well-being of individuals with social anxiety during in-person conversations.