Collaboration in Augmented Reality: How to establish coordination and joint attention?

Schnier C, Pitsch K, Dierker A, Hermann T. Collaboration in Augmented Reality: How to establish coordination and joint attention? In: Boedker S, Bouvin NO, Lutters W, Wulf V, Ciolfi L, eds. Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW 2011). Springer-Verlag London; 2011: 405-416.We present an initial investigation from a semi-experimental setting, in which an HMD-based AR-system has been used for real-time collaboration in a task-oriented scenario (design of a museum exhibition). Analysis points out the specific conditions of interacting in an AR environment and focuses on one particular practical problem for the participants in coordinating their interaction: how to establish joint attention towards the same object or referent. Analysis allows insights into how the pair of users begins to familarize with the environment, the limitations and opportunities of the setting and how they establish new routines for e.g. solving the ʻjoint attentionʼ-problem

Real-time, interactive, visually updated simulator system for telepresence

Time delays and limited sensory feedback of remote telerobotic systems tend to disorient teleoperators and dramatically decrease the operator's performance. To remove the effects of time delays, key components were designed and developed of a prototype forward simulation subsystem, the Global-Local Environment Telerobotic Simulator (GLETS) that buffers the operator from the remote task. GLETS totally immerses an operator in a real-time, interactive, simulated, visually updated artificial environment of the remote telerobotic site. Using GLETS, the operator will, in effect, enter into a telerobotic virtual reality and can easily form a gestalt of the virtual 'local site' that matches the operator's normal interactions with the remote site. In addition to use in space based telerobotics, GLETS, due to its extendable architecture, can also be used in other teleoperational environments such as toxic material handling, construction, and undersea exploration

In-home and remote use of robotic body surrogates by people with profound motor deficits

By controlling robots comparable to the human body, people with profound motor deficits could potentially perform a variety of physical tasks for themselves, improving their quality of life. The extent to which this is achievable has been unclear due to the lack of suitable interfaces by which to control robotic body surrogates and a dearth of studies involving substantial numbers of people with profound motor deficits. We developed a novel, web-based augmented reality interface that enables people with profound motor deficits to remotely control a PR2 mobile manipulator from Willow Garage, which is a human-scale, wheeled robot with two arms. We then conducted two studies to investigate the use of robotic body surrogates. In the first study, 15 novice users with profound motor deficits from across the United States controlled a PR2 in Atlanta, GA to perform a modified Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and a simulated self-care task. Participants achieved clinically meaningful improvements on the ARAT and 12 of 15 participants (80%) successfully completed the simulated self-care task. Participants agreed that the robotic system was easy to use, was useful, and would provide a meaningful improvement in their lives. In the second study, one expert user with profound motor deficits had free use of a PR2 in his home for seven days. He performed a variety of self-care and household tasks, and also used the robot in novel ways. Taking both studies together, our results suggest that people with profound motor deficits can improve their quality of life using robotic body surrogates, and that they can gain benefit with only low-level robot autonomy and without invasive interfaces. However, methods to reduce the rate of errors and increase operational speed merit further investigation.Comment: 43 Pages, 13 Figure

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

A robot hand testbed designed for enhancing embodiment and functional neurorehabilitation of body schema in subjects with upper limb impairment or loss.

Many upper limb amputees experience an incessant, post-amputation "phantom limb pain" and report that their missing limbs feel paralyzed in an uncomfortable posture. One hypothesis is that efferent commands no longer generate expected afferent signals, such as proprioceptive feedback from changes in limb configuration, and that the mismatch of motor commands and visual feedback is interpreted as pain. Non-invasive therapeutic techniques for treating phantom limb pain, such as mirror visual feedback (MVF), rely on visualizations of postural changes. Advances in neural interfaces for artificial sensory feedback now make it possible to combine MVF with a high-tech "rubber hand" illusion, in which subjects develop a sense of embodiment with a fake hand when subjected to congruent visual and somatosensory feedback. We discuss clinical benefits that could arise from the confluence of known concepts such as MVF and the rubber hand illusion, and new technologies such as neural interfaces for sensory feedback and highly sensorized robot hand testbeds, such as the "BairClaw" presented here. Our multi-articulating, anthropomorphic robot testbed can be used to study proprioceptive and tactile sensory stimuli during physical finger-object interactions. Conceived for artificial grasp, manipulation, and haptic exploration, the BairClaw could also be used for future studies on the neurorehabilitation of somatosensory disorders due to upper limb impairment or loss. A remote actuation system enables the modular control of tendon-driven hands. The artificial proprioception system enables direct measurement of joint angles and tendon tensions while temperature, vibration, and skin deformation are provided by a multimodal tactile sensor. The provision of multimodal sensory feedback that is spatiotemporally consistent with commanded actions could lead to benefits such as reduced phantom limb pain, and increased prosthesis use due to improved functionality and reduced cognitive burden

Taking Fitts' Slow: The Effects of Delayed Visual Feedback on Human Motor Performance and User Experience

abstract: ABSTRACT The present studies investigated the separate effects of two types of visual feedback delay – increased latency and decreased updating rate – on performance – both actual (e.g. response time) and subjective (i.e. rating of perceived input device performance) – in 2-dimensional pointing tasks using a mouse as an input device. The first sub-study examined the effects of increased latency on performance using two separate experiments. In the first experiment the effects of constant latency on performance were tested, wherein participants completed blocks of trials with a constant level of latency. Additionally, after each block, participants rated their subjective experience of the input device performance at each level of latency. The second experiment examined the effects of variable latency on performance, where latency was randomized within blocks of trials. The second sub-study investigated the effects of decreased updating rates on performance in the same manner as the first study, wherein experiment one tested the effect of constant updating rate on performance as well as subjective rating, and experiment two tested the effect of variable updating rate on performance. The findings suggest that latency is negative correlated with actual performance as well as subjective ratings of performance, and updating rate is positively correlated with actual performance as well as subjective ratings of performance.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Applied Psychology 201

Analysis domain model for shared virtual environments

The field of shared virtual environments, which also encompasses online games and social 3D environments, has a system landscape consisting of multiple solutions that share great functional overlap. However, there is little system interoperability between the different solutions. A shared virtual environment has an associated problem domain that is highly complex raising difficult challenges to the development process, starting with the architectural design of the underlying system. This paper has two main contributions. The first contribution is a broad domain analysis of shared virtual environments, which enables developers to have a better understanding of the whole rather than the part(s). The second contribution is a reference domain model for discussing and describing solutions - the Analysis Domain Model

An investigation into the cognitive effects of delayed visual feedback

Abstract unavailable please refer to PD