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

Turing-Test Evaluation of a Mobile Haptic Virtual Reality Kissing Machine

Various communication systems have been developed to integrate the haptic channel in digital communication. Future directions of such haptic technologies are moving towards realistic virtual reality applications and human-robot social interaction. With the digitisation of touch, robots equipped with touch sensors and actuators can communicate with humans on a more emotional and intimate level, such as sharing a hug or kiss just like humans do. This paper presents the design guideline, implementation and evaluations of a novel haptic kissing machine for smart phones - the Kissenger machine. The key novelties and contributions of the paper are: (i) A novel haptic kissing device for mobile phones, which uses dynamic perpendicular force stimulation to transmit realistic sensations of kissing in order to enhance intimacy and emotional connection of digital communication; (ii) Extensive evaluations of the Kissenger machine, including a lab experiment that compares mediated kissing with Kissenger to real kissing, a unique haptic Turing test that involves the first academic study of humanmachine kiss, and a field study of the effects of Kissenger on long distance relationships

On the simulation of interactive non-verbal behaviour in virtual humans

Development of virtual humans has focused mainly in two broad areas - conversational agents and computer game characters. Computer game characters have traditionally been action-oriented - focused on the game-play - and conversational agents have been focused on sensible/intelligent conversation. While virtual humans have incorporated some form of non-verbal behaviour, this has been quite limited and more importantly not connected or connected very loosely with the behaviour of a real human interacting with the virtual human - due to a lack of sensor data and no system to respond to that data. The interactional aspect of non-verbal behaviour is highly important in human-human interactions and previous research has demonstrated that people treat media (and therefore virtual humans) as real people, and so interactive non-verbal behaviour is also important in the development of virtual humans. This paper presents the challenges in creating virtual humans that are non-verbally interactive and drawing corollaries with the development history of control systems in robotics presents some approaches to solving these challenges - specifically using behaviour based systems - and shows how an order of magnitude increase in response time of virtual humans in conversation can be obtained and that the development of rapidly responding non-verbal behaviours can start with just a few behaviours with more behaviours added without difficulty later in development

The perception of emotion in artificial agents

Given recent technological developments in robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, it is perhaps unsurprising that the arrival of emotionally expressive and reactive artificial agents is imminent. However, if such agents are to become integrated into our social milieu, it is imperative to establish an understanding of whether and how humans perceive emotion in artificial agents. In this review, we incorporate recent findings from social robotics, virtual reality, psychology, and neuroscience to examine how people recognize and respond to emotions displayed by artificial agents. First, we review how people perceive emotions expressed by an artificial agent, such as facial and bodily expressions and vocal tone. Second, we evaluate the similarities and differences in the consequences of perceived emotions in artificial compared to human agents. Besides accurately recognizing the emotional state of an artificial agent, it is critical to understand how humans respond to those emotions. Does interacting with an angry robot induce the same responses in people as interacting with an angry person? Similarly, does watching a robot rejoice when it wins a game elicit similar feelings of elation in the human observer? Here we provide an overview of the current state of emotion expression and perception in social robotics, as well as a clear articulation of the challenges and guiding principles to be addressed as we move ever closer to truly emotional artificial agents

A Review of Verbal and Non-Verbal Human-Robot Interactive Communication

In this paper, an overview of human-robot interactive communication is presented, covering verbal as well as non-verbal aspects of human-robot interaction. Following a historical introduction, and motivation towards fluid human-robot communication, ten desiderata are proposed, which provide an organizational axis both of recent as well as of future research on human-robot communication. Then, the ten desiderata are examined in detail, culminating to a unifying discussion, and a forward-looking conclusion

Cultural robotics : The culture of robotics and robotics in culture

Copyright 2013 Samani et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedIn this paper, we have investigated the concept of "Cultural Robotics" with regard to the evolution o social into cultural robots in the 21st Century. By defining the concept of culture, the potential development of culture between humans and robots is explored. Based on the cultural values of the robotics developers, and the learning ability of current robots, cultural attributes in this regard are in the process of being formed, which would define the new concept of cultural robotics. According to the importance of the embodiment of robots in the sense of presence, the influence of robots in communication culture is anticipated. The sustainability of robotics culture based on diversity for cultural communities for various acceptance modalities is explored in order to anticipate the creation of different attributes of culture between robot and humans in the futurePeer reviewe

Computer Mediated Communication and the Connection between Virtual Utopias and Actual Realities

People have generally been very ambivalent about the potential future roles of new technologies (and the internet specifically) and their possible effects on human society. Indeed, there has been a tendency for polarization between attitudes or perceptions of naive enthusiasm and cynical resistance towards the use of computers and computer networks, and for such related concepts as ‘the information superhighway’ and ‘cyberspace’. The projection of such ambivalent perceptions into naively utopian (or even ironically dystopian) images and narratives might be seen as the latest and uniquely global permutation of a basic function of human culture - that is, to imagine ‘a better future’ or represent ‘an ideal past’. This paper will consider the extent to which the kinds of virtual utopias made possible by computer-mediated communications are\ud ‘connected’ to the actual individual and social realities of human participants. In other words, how important might it be to recognise a distinction between the use of virtual utopias (and utopian representations in any culture) as merely escapist, self-indulgent fantasy on one hand, and\ud as a useful, transformative media for reinventing the human condition on the other? Whether we live in a Panoptic or democratic Net ten years from now depends, in no small measure, on what you and I know and do now. Howard Rheingold, Afterword to The Virtual Community (1994, p. 310