Construct · 2 fields · 3 citations

Where does avatar collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaninguncanny valleycompare the meanings
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avatar2 CONSTRUCTSDigital avatarMORNINGSTAR · VIRTUAL BODYMouse avatarMALANEY · PATIENT MODEL

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1991Digital avatar2014Mouse avatar
2026

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Human-computer interaction

A user's virtual embodiment

In computing an avatar is the figure a person controls to represent themselves inside a virtual world or online space. Morningstar and Farmer's 1991 account of Lucasfilm's Habitat, an early graphical online community, used the term for the on-screen body that each user inhabited and moved; the word reached a wide audience through Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash, and Bailenson and Blascovich's 2004 review set out how such representations are built and studied. The referent is a controllable digital stand-in for a real user, not a god taking birth on earth or a laboratory animal carrying a patient's cancer.[1][2]

Unit
One digital figure controlled by a user
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Described by its visual form and its controls, and studied by how its appearance and behavior affect the user and others

Cancer research and personalized medicine

A living surrogate of a patient's tumor

In cancer research an avatar is a living surrogate of an individual patient, most often a mouse carrying a graft of that patient's own tumor, used to test which treatments the real patient might respond to. Malaney, Nicosia, and Davé's 2014 review One mouse, one patient paradigm gathered this work under the name and described how a patient-derived graft is grown in host animals and dosed with candidate drugs. The referent is a biological model that mirrors one person's disease, not a deity's descent to earth or a figure a user drives across a screen.[3]

Unit
One host animal bearing an individual patient's tumor graft
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Assessed by how the grafted tumor grows and responds to drugs in the host, compared with the patient's own course

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Nearby collisions

representation7 fields · 9 citationsjingle · one name, six constructspresence5 fields · 7 citationsjingle · one word, five constructsidentity6 fields · 14 citationsjingle · one name, six constructs

References

  1. Morningstar, C., & Farmer, F. R. (1991). The lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat. In M. Benedikt (Ed.), Cyberspace: First steps (pp. 273–301). MIT Press.
  2. Bailenson, J. N., & Blascovich, J. (2004). Avatars. In W. S. Bainbridge (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human-computer interaction (pp. 64–68). Berkshire Publishing Group.
  3. Malaney, P., Nicosia, S. V., & Davé, V. (2014). One mouse, one patient paradigm: New avatars of personalized cancer therapy. Cancer Letters, 344(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2013.10.010

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