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Abstract
Change blindness is the failure to notice changes to visual scenes. While often studied as a perceptual phenomenon, its effects on associated behavior, particularly in virtual settings, has yet to be fully leveraged or explored. This research investigates how unnoticed changes in avatar appearance due to Change Blindness can influence the modeling and adoption of helping behaviors. The study investigates how perceived similarity to a model influences self-efficacy, identification, empathy to increase costly helping behaviors, or those which require a sacrifice of resources, time, etc. to complete. Findings indicate that, while Change Blindness did occur, there was no impact on helping behavior. This paper highlights opportunities to investigate and utilize Change blindness in virtual settings, expanding its application beyond perceptual phenomena to behavioral change.