Agent mediation and management of virtual communities: a redefinition of the traditional community concept

The paper explores the evolution of the concept of community in the light of computer mediated immersive virtual environments. The traditional concept of community has become strained in its attempts to capture the evolving virtual community. We believe the concept of the virtual community is of paramount importance and examine the extent to which this is being redefined to cater for it. We examine the management and mediation of such an environment and specifically the social process associated with the cohabited users. We advocate the use of multi-agent systems in delivering this functionalit

Finally a Case for Collaborative VR?: The Need to Design for Remote Multi-Party Conversations

Amid current social distancing measures requiring people to work from home, there has been renewed interest on how to effectively converse and collaborate remotely utilizing currently available technologies. On the surface, VR provides a perfect platform for effective remote communication. It can transfer contextual and environmental cues and facilitate a shared perspective while also allowing people to be virtually co-located. Yet we argue that currently VR is not adequately designed for such a communicative purpose. In this paper, we outline three key barriers to using VR for conversational activity : (1) variability of social immersion, (2) unclear user roles, and (3) the need for effective shared visual reference. Based on this outline, key design topics are discussed through a user experience design perspective for considerations in a future collaborative design framework

Interaction: Beyond retrieval

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57316/1/14504301125_ftp.pd

The responses of people to virtual humans in an immersive virtual environment

This paper presents an experiment investigating the impact of behavior and responsiveness on social responses to virtual humans in an immersive virtual environment (IVE). A number of responses are investigated, including presence, copresence, and two physiological responses—heart rate and electrodermal activity (EDA). Our findings suggest that increasing agents’ responsiveness even on a simple level can have a significant impact on certain aspects of people’s social responses to humanoid agents. Despite being aware that the agents were computer-generated, participants with higher levels of social anxiety were significantly more likely to avoid “disturbing” them. This suggests that on some level people can respond to virtual humans as social actors even in the absence of complex interaction. Responses appear to be shaped both by the agents’ behaviors and by people’s expectations of the technology. Participants experienced a significantly higher sense of personal contact when the agents were visually responsive to them, as opposed to static or simply moving. However, this effect diminished with experienced computer users. Our preliminary analysis of objective heart-rate data reveals an identical pattern of responses

''It''+''I'': Virtual Embodiments as Hybrid Experiences

International audienceA dichotomy exists in the way virtual embodiments are currently studied: embodied entities are considered by conversational approaches as other selves whereas avatar approaches study them as users' hosts. Virtual reality applications such as in our case study often propose a different, in between embodiment experience. In the context of a virtual house for sale visit, this paper aims at examining the user's self-reported embodiment perception resulting from such a hybrid experience. To induce variability in this embodiment experience, we manipulated avatar representations (high versus low anthropomorphism) and frame of reference (egocentric versus exocentric). Results show the importance of the entity humanness to foster both experiences. When controlled by humanness, having a conversational experience appears uncorrelated to an avatar experience. This highlights the need to study these hybrid experiences as a combination of both approaches

Augmented body: changing interactive body play

This paper investigates the player’s body as a system capable of unfamiliar interactive movement through digital mediation in a playful environment. Body interactions with both digital and non-digital environments are suggested here as a perceptually manipulative exploration area, where by a player altering how they perceive of their body and its operations can create a new playful and original experience. It questions how player interaction can change as perception of the body changes using augmentative technology

Nice is Different than Good: Longitudinal Communicative Effects of Realistic and Cartoon Avatars in Real Mixed Reality Work Meetings

We report a within-subjects study of the effect of realistic and cartoon avatars on communication, task satisfaction, and perceived sense of presence in mixed reality meetings. For 2 − 3 weeks, six groups of co-workers (14 people) held a recurring real work meeting using Microsoft HoloLens2 devices. Each person embodied a personalised full-body avatar with a realistic face and another with a cartoon face. Half the groups started in the realistic condition and the other half started in the cartoon condition; all groups switched conditions half-way. Initial results show that, overall, participants found the realistic avatars’ nonverbal behaviour more appropriate for the interaction and more useful for understanding their colleagues compared to the cartoon one. Regarding the results over time, we identify different insights for cartoon and realistic avatars based on the type of avatar was embodied first. We discuss the implications of these results for mixed and virtual reality meetings

How Foot Tracking Matters: The Impact of an Animated Self-Avatar on Interaction, Embodiment and Presence in Shared Virtual Environments

The use of a self-avatar representation in head-mounted displays has been shown to have important effects on user behavior. However, relatively few studies focus on feet and legs. We implemented a shared virtual reality for consumer virtual reality systems where each user could be represented by a gender-matched self-avatar controlled by multiple trackers. The self-avatar allowed users to see their feet, legs and part of their torso when they looked down. We implemented an experiment where participants worked together to solve jigsaw puzzles. Participants experienced either no-avatar, a self-avatar with floating feet, or a self-avatar with tracked feet, in a between-subjects manipulation. First, we found that participants could solve the puzzle more quickly with self-avatars than without self-avatars; but there was no significant difference between the latter two conditions, solely on task completion time. Second, we found participants with tracked feet placed their feet statistically significantly closer to obstacles than participants with floating feet, whereas participants who did not have a self-avatar usually ignored obstacles. Our post-experience questionnaire results confirmed that the use of a self-avatar has important effects on presence and interaction. Together the results show that although the impact of animated legs might be subtle, it does change how users behave around obstacles. This could have important implications for the design of virtual spaces for applications such as training or behavioral analysis