In his 1970s gender-bending days, musician David Bowie would have made a dubious computer avatar. It turns out we find androgynous avatars less trustworthy than those who are clearly male or female.
People regularly use avatars online to represent them while chatting with friends or exploring virtual worlds. Companies also use them to interact with customers. To find out whether your choice of avatar affects how others perceive you, Kristine Nowak and Christian Rauh of the University of Connecticut in Storrs paired up volunteers and asked them to chat by typing messages into a computer. Although they didn’t meet face…
