Nonverbal communication in virtual reality: Nodding as a social signal in virtual interactions

Nonverbal communication is an important part of human communication, including head nodding, eye gaze, proximity and body orientation. Recent research has identified specific patterns of head nodding linked to conversation, namely mimicry of head movements at 600 ms delay and fast nodding when listening. In this paper, we implemented these head nodding behaviour rules in virtual humans, and we tested the impact of these behaviours, and whether they lead to increases in trust and liking towards the virtual humans. We use Virtual Reality technology to simulate a face-to-face conversation, as VR provides a high level of immersiveness and social presence, very similar to face-to-face interaction. We then conducted a study with human-subject participants, where the participants took part in conversations with two virtual humans and then rated the virtual character social characteristics, and completed an evaluation of their implicit trust in the virtual human. Results showed more liking for and more trust in the virtual human whose nodding behaviour was driven by realistic behaviour rules. This supports the psychological models of nodding and advances our ability to build realistic virtual humans

Nonverbal communication in virtual reality: Nodding as a social signal in virtual interactions

Nonverbal communication is an important part of human communication, including head nodding, eye gaze, proximity and body orientation. Recent research has identified specific patterns of head nodding linked to conversation, namely mimicry of head movements at 600 ms delay and fast nodding when listening. In this paper, we implemented these head nodding behaviour rules in virtual humans, and we tested the impact of these behaviours, and whether they lead to increases in trust and liking towards the virtual humans. We use Virtual Reality technology to simulate a face-to-face conversation, as VR provides a high level of immersiveness and social presence, very similar to face-to-face interaction. We then conducted a study with human-subject participants, where the participants took part in conversations with two virtual humans and then rated the virtual character social characteristics, and completed an evaluation of their implicit trust in the virtual human. Results showed more liking for and more trust in the virtual human whose nodding behaviour was driven by realistic behaviour rules. This supports the psychological models of nodding and advances our ability to build realistic virtual humans

Robot Tracking of Human Subjects in Field Environments

Future planetary exploration will involve both humans and robots. Understanding and improving their interaction is a main focus of research in the Intelligent Systems Branch at NASA's Johnson Space Center. By teaming intelligent robots with astronauts on surface extra-vehicular activities (EVAs), safety and productivity can be improved. The EVA Robotic Assistant (ERA) project was established to study the issues of human-robot teams, to develop a testbed robot to assist space-suited humans in exploration tasks, and to experimentally determine the effectiveness of an EVA assistant robot. A companion paper discusses the ERA project in general, its history starting with ASRO (Astronaut-Rover project), and the results of recent field tests in Arizona. This paper focuses on one aspect of the research, robot tracking, in greater detail: the software architecture and algorithms. The ERA robot is capable of moving towards and/or continuously following mobile or stationary targets or sequences of targets. The contributions made by this research include how the low-level pose data is assembled, normalized and communicated, how the tracking algorithm was generalized and implemented, and qualitative performance reports from recent field tests

Intelligent Voice Guidance in VR: Understanding the Value of NLP in Virtual Environments

Virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri emerged because of the growth of NLP(natural language processing) technology. At the same time, virtual reality has developed rapidly in recent years and has become a crucial tool in engineering product development procedures. However, people feel overwhelmed in some complicated VR environments. Thus, this thesis tries to incorporate NLP technology into the VR environment and explores the value of intelligent voice guidance in VR environments. In this thesis, a car repair training system with intelligent voice guidance is designed: users can utilize voice to perform various tasks in this system, such as; viewing all voice commands, teleporting to distinct work areas, inquiry regarding specific steps in a task, collaborating with system items, etc. This thesis also discusses the user study process in detail. It is concluded that voice guidance is an effective method of teaching the training task, particularly for individuals who have no prior experience with virtual reality. However, the current system still has a certain amount of low accuracy, which is the future direction that needs to be improved

A very real Virtual Society: some macrosociological reflections on "Second Life"

"Contrasting with various 'virtual communities', Second Life is a genuine 'virtual society' with the potential to provide a universal framework of interoperability between unlimited masses of individual as well as collective actors. By mirroring (end even amplifying) the acentrism and individualism of contemporary society, it is characterized by precarious member motivation, conservative conventionalism, a strong focus on money, a tendency toward class formation and a conspicuous deficit in politics and the public sphere. On the other hand, it contrasts with 'First Life' by offering malleable artifacts and situated environments which are likely to transform deeply the way people surf and interact on the net." (author's abstract