I feel it in my fingers! Sense of agency with mid-air haptics

Recent technological advances incorporate mid- air haptic feedback, enriching sensory experience during touchless virtual interactions. We investigated how this impacts the user’s sense of agency. Sense of agency refers to the feeling of controlling external events through one’s actions and has attracted growing interest from human-computer interaction researchers. This is mainly due to the fact that the user’s experience of control over a system is of primary importance. Here we measured sense of agency during a virtual button- pressing task, where the button press caused a tone outcome to occur after intervals of different durations. We explored the effect of manipulating a) mid-air haptic feedback and b) the latency of the virtual hand’s movement with respect to the actual hand movement. Sense of agency was quantified with implicit and explicit measures. Results showed that haptic feedback increased implicit sense of agency for the longest action-outcome interval length. Results also showed that latency led to a decrease in explicit sense of agency, but that this reduction was attenuated in the presence of haptic feedback. We discuss the implications of these findings, focusing on the idea that haptic feedback can be used to protect, or even increase, users’ experiences of agency in virtual interactions

Particle-ularly Haptics: Investigating the Relationship Between Visual Feedback and Mid-Air Haptic Texture

Mid-air haptic feedback technology produces tactile sensations that are felt without the need for physical interactions, and bridges the gap with digital interactions, by making the virtual feel real. However, existing mid-air haptic experiences often do not reflect user expectations in terms of congruence between visual and haptic stimuli. To overcome this, we investigate how to better present the visual properties of objects, so that what one feels is a more accurate prediction of what one sees. In the following demonstration, we present an approach that allows users to fine tune the visual appearance of different textured surfaces, and then match these to corresponding mid-air haptic stimuli in order to improve visual-haptic congruenc

Empirical evidence for a diminished sense of agency in speech interfaces

While the technology underlying speech interfaces has improved in recent years, our understanding of the human side of speech interactions remains limited. This paper provides new insight on one important human aspect of speech interactions: the sense of agency - defined as the experience of controlling one’s own actions and their outcomes. Two experiments are described. In each case a voice command is compared with keyboard input. Agency is measured using an implicit metric: intentional binding. In both experiments we find that participants’ sense of agency is significantly reduced for voice commands as compared to keyboard input. This finding presents a fundamental challenge for the design of effective speech interfaces. We reflect on this finding and, based on current theory in HCI and cognitive neuroscience, offer possible explanations for the reduced sense of agency observed in speech interfaces

The experience of agency in human-computer interactions: a review.

The sense of agency is the experience of controlling both one's body and the external environment. Although the sense of agency has been studied extensively, there is a paucity of studies in applied "real-life" situations. One applied domain that seems highly relevant is human-computer-interaction (HCI), as an increasing number of our everyday agentive interactions involve technology. Indeed, HCI has long recognized the feeling of control as a key factor in how people experience interactions with technology. The aim of this review is to summarize and examine the possible links between sense of agency and understanding control in HCI. We explore the overlap between HCI and sense of agency for computer input modalities and system feedback, computer assistance, and joint actions between humans and computers. An overarching consideration is how agency research can inform HCI and vice versa. Finally, we discuss the potential ethical implications of personal responsibility in an ever-increasing society of technology users and intelligent machine interfaces

Liveness Through the Lens of Agency and Causality

Liveness is a well-known problem with Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs). When used in performances, DMIs provide less visual information than acoustic instruments, preventing the audience from understanding how the musicians influence the music. In this paper, we look at this issuethrough the lens of causality. More specifically, we investigate the attribution of causality by an external observer to a performer, relying on the theory of apparent mental causation. We suggest that the perceived causality between a performer’s gestures and the musical result is central to liveness. We present a framework for assessing attributed causality and agency to a performer, based on a psychological heory which suggests three criteria for inferred causality. These criteria then provide the basis of an experimentalstudy investigating the effect of visual augmentations on audience’s inferred causality. The results provide insights onhow the visual component of performances with DMIs impacts the audience’s causal inferences about the performer.In particular we show that visual augmentations help highlight the influence of the musician when parts of the musicare automated, and help clarify complex mappings between gestures and sounds. Finally we discuss the potential wider implications for assessing liveness in the design of new musical interfaces

SmellControl: the study of sense of agency in smell

The Sense of Agency (SoA) is crucial in interaction with technology, it refers to the feeling of 'I did that' as opposed to 'the system did that' supporting a feeling of being in control. Research in human-computer interaction has recently studied agency in visual, auditory and haptic interfaces, however the role of smell on agency remains unknown. Our sense of smell is quite powerful to elicit emotions, memories and awareness of the environment, which has been exploited to enhance user experiences (e.g., in VR and driving scenarios). In light of increased interest in designing multimodal interfaces including smell and its close link with emotions, we investigated, for the first time, the effect of smell-induced emotions on the SoA. We conducted a study using the Intentional Binding (IB) paradigm used to measure SoA while participants were exposed to three scents with different valence (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). Our results show that participants? SoA increased with a pleasant scent compared to neutral and unpleasant scents. We discuss how our results can inform the design of multimodal and future olfactory interfaces