Mutual Gaze Support in Videoconferencing Reviewed

Videoconferencing allows geographically dispersed parties to communicate by simultaneous audio and video transmissions. It is used in a variety of application scenarios with a wide range of coordination needs and efforts, such as private chat, discussion meetings, and negotiation tasks. In particular, in scenarios requiring certain levels of trust and judgement non-verbal communication, cues are highly important for effective communication. Mutual gaze support plays a central role in those high coordination need scenarios but generally lacks adequate technical support from videoconferencing systems. In this paper, we review technical concepts and implementations for mutual gaze support in videoconferencing, classify them, evaluate them according to a defined set of criteria, and give recommendations for future developments. Our review gives decision makers, researchers, and developers a tool to systematically apply and further develop videoconferencing systems in serious settings requiring mutual gaze. This should lead to well-informed decisions regarding the use and development of this technology and to a more widespread exploitation of the benefits of videoconferencing in general. For example, if videoconferencing systems supported high-quality mutual gaze in an easy-to-set-up and easy-to-use way, we could hold more effective and efficient recruitment interviews, court hearings, or contract negotiations

Factors for the sense of presence within virtual architecture

Die Dissertation adressiert das Gebiet der Entwicklung von (räumlicher) Präsenz in computer-generierten virtuellen Umgebungen im speziellen und virtueller Architektur im besonderen. Der erste Teil motiviert die Arbeit, führt in die Terminologie ein und beschreibt die grundlegenden Prinzipien der virtuellen Realität (VR) und von VR-basierter Architektur. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf sogenannten immersiven VR-Systemen. Der folgende Teil erarbeitet den theoretischen Hintergrund der Entwickling von Präsenz unter besonderer Beachtung philosophischer und kognitiver Ansätze. Ein eigenes Kapitel widmet sich der Klassifikation von Präsenz-Faktoren unter dem Gesichtspunkt der praktischen Gestaltung virtueller Architektur. Letztendlich werden verschiedene empirische Untersuchungen vorgestellt, die die entwickelten Ansaetze evaluieren und beschreiben. Die Ergebnisse werden im Kontext des architektonischen Gestaltens diskutiert.The dissertation addresses the domain of the development of the sense of presense within computer-generated virtual environments in general and within virtual architecture in particular. The first part provides motivation and terminology as well as the description of the basic principles of the generation of virtual worlds and virtual reality based architecture. The focus is set on so called immersive virtual reality systems. The following part offers a theoretical background on the sense of presence with special respect to philosophical and cognitive approaches. Considering practical aspects in developing virtual environments and architecture a classification framework for contributing factors is given in a seperate chapter. Finally several empirical investigations serve as a proof of the approaches developed and will be discussed in the context of architectural design

Telepresence and user-initiated control

To date, telepresence; defined as being virtually present at a remote, real location; is a research subject primarily of interest to robotics and aerospace industries. The pi-lot system and the study presented here aim to investigate whether telepresence can be achieved with an affordable and easy to use system. In our approach a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with a camera represents the remote self at the local site. The PDA is mounted to a pan and tilt unit which can be con-trolled from the remote location by simply pressing keys on the keyboard of a PC. In a pilot user study we can show, that (a) even this simple setup can be used as a telep-resence system, (b) the control of the field of view within the remote environment is important, and (c) some social presence properties are positively influenced by the user-initiated control

Mixed Reality Experience Questionnaire (MREQ) -Reference

The Mixed Reality Experience Questionnaire (MREQ) is designed to be used as a measure of a user's sense of presence and their general experienced perception of an Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, or Augmented Virtuality environment. It consists of 33 seven-point-Likert-like items. Researchers might want to apply all or only some of those items. This Technical Report serves as a reference. Researchers who use this MREQ are asked to send their findings and/or publications to the first author and to cite this Technical Report

Motor speech disorders in the nonfluent, semantic and logopenic variants of primary progressive aphasia. Supplementary data: Motor speech characterization per participant

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