# Virtual Humans in Museums and Cultural Heritage Sites
## 3 Results
### Uses of VR and MR  
As time progresses, mixed reality applications, virtually all of which are augmented reality with only one instance of augmented virtuality ([PERSON] et al., 2020), have become more and more frequent. This is a natural outcome of the adoption of newer technologies (namely MR in this case) and the exploration of its potential. However, this is not to say that the use of VR recedes, as the number of such cases remains rather stable; nevertheless, MR applications have claimed a considerable percentage since 2015. VR and MR have their own distinct strengths and weaknesses; therefore, they are employed depending on priorities and contexts. One main difference, for example, between MR apps and VR installations is that the former offer flexibility as visitors can use their hand-held devices and combine actual objects/imagery with virtual ones. VR installations can offer immersive, interactive experiences, e.g., communication with digital humans that can approximate natural language, taking advantage of the greater processing power the hardware of fixed installations can have. Therefore, there is a balancing act between the capabilities mixed reality unlocks and its limitations as a technology that mostly functions on users' own portable devices, and that cannot match onsite VR installations that offer superior levels of behavioural realism embedded in the DHs that function as guides, etc. Both VR and MR offer characteristics and capabilities that are valuable, and, as described in the conclusions section, there is scope for trying to combine their strengths in future research. Current research ([PERSON] et al., 2022) in VR-based user avatars is often orientated toward novel technological possibilities such as the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). Moreover, recent VR-based solutions often have a specific area of interest, for example, how to optimise the parameters regarding a dancer's avatar to educate users on traditional dance movements ([PERSON] et al., 2020 [7]; [PERSON] and [PERSON], 2022 [8]). Such VR-related research typically takes place in an experimental setting in a lab, while recent publications regarding MR are often actively used in museum settings, with actual visitors, as opposed to experiment participants (e.g., [PERSON] et al., 2020 [9], [PERSON] et al., 2021 [10]). MR applications are even more prevalent in publications that present case studies of avatar/digital human use in visitable venues such as museums (e.g., [PERSON], 2016 [11]), as opposed to research conducted in labs. While this underlines the shift toward MR in the cultural sector, it also must be noted that very often, museums/CH sites try to combine the best of both worlds, by offering onsite MR experiences, and VR applications for remote users (e.g., [PERSON] et al., 2020 [12]) or allowing users to choose between VR and MR onsite ([PERSON] et al., 2020 [9]). Furthermore, recent publications (e.g., [PERSON] et al., 2014 [13]; [PERSON] et al., 2020 [14]; [PERSON] et al., 2022 [15]) that investigate the ability of virtual agents who present exhibits to users in VR settings (e.g., museum guides or companions) to engage visitors do so in experiments. This allows for more focused research on a set of variables (avatars' clothing, appearance and, most importantly, modes of address, i.e., the style and register of verbal communications with users; these can range from impersonal, authoritative, and almost didactic to informal and convivial, resembling a peer-to-peer interaction). Moreover, the effectiveness of agents that undertake the presentation of exhibits to users has been tested in experiments in which human-like, realistic digital agents have been used in comparison with robot-like ([PERSON] et al. 2019a [16] and 2019b [17]), skeletal or simplistic dummy doll-like DHs ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2022 [8]) to gauge their respective impact on visitors.