MAGIC: Manipulating Avatars and Gestures to Improve Remote Collaboration

Remote collaborative work has become pervasive in many settings, from engineering to medical professions. Users are immersed in virtual environments and communicate through life-sized avatars that enable face-to-face collaboration. Within this context, users often collaboratively view and interact with virtual 3D models, for example, to assist in designing new devices such as customized prosthetics, vehicles, or buildings. However, discussing shared 3D content face-to-face has various challenges, such as ambiguities, occlusions, and different viewpoints that all decrease mutual awareness, leading to decreased task performance and increased errors. To address this challenge, we introduce MAGIC, a novel approach for understanding pointing gestures in a face-to-face shared 3D space, improving mutual understanding and awareness. Our approach distorts the remote user\'s gestures to correctly reflect them in the local user\'s reference space when face-to-face. We introduce a novel metric called pointing agreement to measure what two users perceive in common when using pointing gestures in a shared 3D space. Results from a user study suggest that MAGIC significantly improves pointing agreement in face-to-face collaboration settings, improving co-presence and awareness of interactions performed in the shared space. We believe that MAGIC improves remote collaboration by enabling simpler communication mechanisms and better mutual awareness.Comment: Presented at IEEE VR 202

Designing to Support Workspace Awareness in Remote Collaboration using 2D Interactive Surfaces

Increasing distributions of the global workforce are leading to collaborative workamong remote coworkers. The emergence of such remote collaborations is essentiallysupported by technology advancements of screen-based devices ranging from tabletor laptop to large displays. However, these devices, especially personal and mobilecomputers, still suffer from certain limitations caused by their form factors, that hinder supporting workspace awareness through non-verbal communication suchas bodily gestures or gaze. This thesis thus aims to design novel interfaces andinteraction techniques to improve remote coworkers’ workspace awareness throughsuch non-verbal cues using 2D interactive surfaces.The thesis starts off by exploring how visual cues support workspace awareness infacilitated brainstorming of hybrid teams of co-located and remote coworkers. Basedon insights from this exploration, the thesis introduces three interfaces for mobiledevices that help users maintain and convey their workspace awareness with their coworkers. The first interface is a virtual environment that allows a remote person to effectively maintain his/her awareness of his/her co-located collaborators’ activities while interacting with the shared workspace. To help a person better express his/her hand gestures in remote collaboration using a mobile device, the second interfacepresents a lightweight add-on for capturing hand images on and above the device’sscreen; and overlaying them on collaborators’ device to improve their workspace awareness. The third interface strategically leverages the entire screen space of aconventional laptop to better convey a remote person’s gaze to his/her co-locatedcollaborators. Building on the top of these three interfaces, the thesis envisions an interface that supports a person using a mobile device to effectively collaborate with remote coworkers working with a large display.Together, these interfaces demonstrate the possibilities to innovate on commodity devices to offer richer non-verbal communication and better support workspace awareness in remote collaboration

The creation of “Questions Bank" and introduction of 2.0. examination session

In the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora Jagiellonian University, with the support of the Distance Learning Centre at the Jagiellonian University was introduced an innovative method of examination based on empowering the students. During the 2014 session, the students were invited to create test questions. Accepted by the lecturer questions were used on he exam. Extensive “Questions Bank” may be used in subsequent examinations 2.0. The authors of the paper present practical advice on how to prepare and carry out such an examination. They share know how of practical suggestions from pedagogical to technical aspect of moving from teaching to learning while using the idea of Questions Bank. They discuss the impact on the motivation and creativity of students, the principles of achievement and assessment, methods of verifying the content of the questions and technical measures to make questions and hindering cheating. The use of innovative methods of preparing and conducting the exam based on the Questions Bank had a positive impact on the mobilization and involvement of students, which resulted in a very good performance evaluation questionnaires of the lecture

Turn It This Way: Remote Gesturing in Video-Mediated Communication

Collaborative physical tasks are working tasks characterised by workers 'in-the-field' who manipulate task artefacts under the guidance of a remote expert. Examples of such interactions include paramedics requiring field-surgery consults from hospital surgeons, soldiers requiring support from distant bomb-disposal experts, technicians inspecting and repairing machinery under the guidance of a chief engineer or scientists examining artefacts with distributed colleagues. This thesis considers the design of technology to support such forms of distributed working. Early research in video-mediated communication (VMC) which sought to support such interactions presumed video links between remote spaces would improve collaboration. The results of these studies however, demonstrated that in such tasks audio-video links alone were unlikely to improve performance beyond that achievable by simpler audio-only links. In explanation of these observations a reading of studies of situated collaborative working practices suggests that to support distributed object-focussed interactions it is beneficial to not only provide visual access to remote spaces but also to present within the task-space the gestural actions of remote collaborators. Remote Gestural Simulacra are advanced video-mediated communication tools that enable remote collaborators to both see and observably point at and gesture around and towards shared task artefacts located at another site. Technologies developed to support such activities have been critiqued; their design often fractures the interaction between the collaborating parties, restricting access to aspects of communication which are commonly used in co-present situations to coordinate interaction and ground understanding. This thesis specifically explores the design of remote gesture tools, seeking to understand how remote representations of gesture can be used during collaborative physical tasks. In a series of lab-based studies, the utility of remote gesturing is investigated, both qualitatively, examining its collaborative function and quantitatively exploring its impact on both facets of task performance and collaborative language. The thesis also discusses how the configuration of remote gesture tools impacts on their usability, empirically comparing various gesture tool designs. The thesis constructs and examines an argument that remote gesture tools should be designed from a 'mixed ecologies' perspective (theoretically alleviating the problems engendered by 'fractured ecologies' in which collaborating partners are given access to the most salient and relevant features of communicative action that are utilised in face-to-face interaction, namely mutual and reciprocal awareness of commonly understood object-focussed actions (hand-based gestures) and mutual and reciprocal awareness of task-space perspectives. The thesis demonstrates experimental support for this position and concludes by presenting discussion of how the findings generated from the thesis research can be used to guide the design of future iterations of remote gesture tools, and presents directions for areas of further research

Robot mediated communication: Enhancing tele-presence using an avatar

In the past few years there has been a lot of development in the field of tele-presence. These developments have caused tele-presence technologies to become easily accessible and also for the experience to be enhanced. Since tele-presence is not only used for tele-presence assisted group meetings but also in some forms of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), these activities have also been facilitated. One of the lingering issues has to do with how to properly transmit presence of non-co-located members to the rest of the group. Using current commercially available tele-presence technology it is possible to exhibit a limited level of social presence but no physical presence. In order to cater for this lack of presence a system is implemented here using tele-operated robots as avatars for remote team members and had its efficacy tested. This testing includes both the level of presence that can be exhibited by robot avatars but also how the efficacy of these robots for this task changes depending on the morphology of the robot. Using different types of robots, a humanoid robot and an industrial robot arm, as tele-presence avatars, it is found that the humanoid robot using an appropriate control system is better at exhibiting a social presence. Further, when compared to a voice only scenario, both robots proved significantly better than with only voice in terms of both cooperative task solving and social presence. These results indicate that using an appropriate control system, a humanoid robot can be better than an industrial robot in these types of tasks and the validity of aiming for a humanoid design behaving in a human-like way in order to emulate social interactions that are closer to human norms. This has implications for the design of autonomous socially interactive robot systems

Turn It This Way: Remote Gesturing in Video-Mediated Communication

Collaborative physical tasks are working tasks characterised by workers 'in-the-field' who manipulate task artefacts under the guidance of a remote expert. Examples of such interactions include paramedics requiring field-surgery consults from hospital surgeons, soldiers requiring support from distant bomb-disposal experts, technicians inspecting and repairing machinery under the guidance of a chief engineer or scientists examining artefacts with distributed colleagues. This thesis considers the design of technology to support such forms of distributed working. Early research in video-mediated communication (VMC) which sought to support such interactions presumed video links between remote spaces would improve collaboration. The results of these studies however, demonstrated that in such tasks audio-video links alone were unlikely to improve performance beyond that achievable by simpler audio-only links. In explanation of these observations a reading of studies of situated collaborative working practices suggests that to support distributed object-focussed interactions it is beneficial to not only provide visual access to remote spaces but also to present within the task-space the gestural actions of remote collaborators. Remote Gestural Simulacra are advanced video-mediated communication tools that enable remote collaborators to both see and observably point at and gesture around and towards shared task artefacts located at another site. Technologies developed to support such activities have been critiqued; their design often fractures the interaction between the collaborating parties, restricting access to aspects of communication which are commonly used in co-present situations to coordinate interaction and ground understanding. This thesis specifically explores the design of remote gesture tools, seeking to understand how remote representations of gesture can be used during collaborative physical tasks. In a series of lab-based studies, the utility of remote gesturing is investigated, both qualitatively, examining its collaborative function and quantitatively exploring its impact on both facets of task performance and collaborative language. The thesis also discusses how the configuration of remote gesture tools impacts on their usability, empirically comparing various gesture tool designs. The thesis constructs and examines an argument that remote gesture tools should be designed from a 'mixed ecologies' perspective (theoretically alleviating the problems engendered by 'fractured ecologies' in which collaborating partners are given access to the most salient and relevant features of communicative action that are utilised in face-to-face interaction, namely mutual and reciprocal awareness of commonly understood object-focussed actions (hand-based gestures) and mutual and reciprocal awareness of task-space perspectives. The thesis demonstrates experimental support for this position and concludes by presenting discussion of how the findings generated from the thesis research can be used to guide the design of future iterations of remote gesture tools, and presents directions for areas of further research

Eye tracking and avatar-mediated communication in immersive collaborative virtual environments

The research presented in this thesis concerns the use of eye tracking to both enhance and understand avatar-mediated communication (AMC) performed by users of immersive collaborative virtual environment (ICVE) systems. AMC, in which users are embodied by graphical humanoids within a shared virtual environment (VE), is rapidly emerging as a prevalent and popular form of remote interaction. However, compared with video-mediated communication (VMC), which transmits interactants’ actual appearance and behaviour, AMC fails to capture, transmit, and display many channels of nonverbal communication (NVC). This is a significant hindrance to the medium’s ability to support rich interpersonal telecommunication. In particular, oculesics (the communicative properties of the eyes), including gaze, blinking, and pupil dilation, are central nonverbal cues during unmediated social interaction. This research explores the interactive and analytical application of eye tracking to drive the oculesic animation of avatars during real-time communication, and as the primary method of experimental data collection and analysis, respectively. Three distinct but interrelated questions are addressed. First, the thesis considers the degree to which quality of communication may be improved through the use of eye tracking, to increase the nonverbal, oculesic, information transmitted during AMC. Second, the research asks whether users engaged in AMC behave and respond in a socially realistic manner in comparison with VMC. Finally, the degree to which behavioural simulations of oculesics can both enhance the realism of virtual humanoids, and complement tracked behaviour in AMC, is considered. These research questions were investigated over a series of telecommunication experiments investigating scenarios common to computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), and a further series of experiments investigating behavioural modelling for virtual humanoids. The first, exploratory, telecommunication experiment compared AMC with VMC in a three-party conversational scenario. Results indicated that users employ gaze similarly when faced with avatar and video representations of fellow interactants, and demonstrated how interaction is influenced by the technical characteristics and limitations of a medium. The second telecommunication experiment investigated the impact of varying methods of avatar gaze control on quality of communication during object-focused multiparty AMC. The main finding of the experiment was that quality of communication is reduced when avatars demonstrate misleading gaze behaviour. The final telecommunication study investigated truthful and deceptive dyadic interaction in AMC and VMC over two closely-related experiments. Results from the first experiment indicated that users demonstrate similar oculesic behaviour and response in both AMC and VMC, but that psychological arousal is greater following video-based interaction. Results from the second experiment found that the use of eye tracking to drive the oculesic behaviour of avatars during AMC increased the richness of NVC to the extent that more accurate estimation of embodied users’ states of veracity was enabled. Rather than directly investigating AMC, the second series of experiments addressed behavioural modelling of oculesics for virtual humanoids. Results from the these experiments indicated that oculesic characteristics are highly influential to the perceived realism of virtual humanoids, and that behavioural models are able to complement the use of eye tracking in AMC. The research presented in this thesis explores AMC and eye tracking over a range of collaborative and perceptual studies. The overall conclusion is that eye tracking is able to enhance AMC towards a richer medium for interpersonal telecommunication, and that users’ behaviour in AMC is no less socially ‘real’ than that demonstrated in VMC. However, there are distinct differences between the two communication mediums, and the importance of matching the characteristics of a planned communication with those of the medium itself is critical