XR Academia:Research and Experiences in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Artificial Intelligence in Latin America and Europe

The book XR Academia: Research and Experiences in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Artificial Intelligence in Latin America and Europe, has at its core the objective of making immersive technology accessible and visible worldwide, with the simultaneous breaking-down of linguistic barriers. Both European and Latin American authors can read each other’s work(s), allowing knowledge and experience in extended reality to be shared. Another important aspect of XR Academia is its attempt to introduce an open science contribution to the issues of immersive technologies, in order to inspire new generations that do not have access to increasingly expensive publications. This volume includes fourteen selected chapters from presenters from the 2020 and 2021 events. These chapters describe research and experiences on a wide range of XR applications, which include entertainment, health, narration, education, psychotherapy, guidance, language, culture and arts. Considering that great inventions and innovations are developed in Latin America but fail to be published internationally, our aim was to open a door to allow the permanent exchange between two languages: Spanish and English

The uncanny valley of a virtual animal.

Virtual robots, including virtual animals, are expected to play a major role within affective and aesthetic interfaces, serious games, video instruction, and the personalization of educational instruction. Their actual impact, however, will very much depend on user perception of virtual characters as the uncanny valley hypothesis has shown that the design of virtual characters determines user experiences. In this article, we investigated whether the uncanny valley effect, which has already been found for the human-like appearance of virtual characters, can also be found for animal-like appearances. We conducted an online study (N = 163) in which six different animal designs were evaluated in terms of the following properties: familiarity, commonality, naturalness, attractiveness, interestingness, and animateness. The study participants differed in age (under 10–60 years) and origin (Europe, Asia, North America, and South America). For the evaluation of the results, we ranked the animal-likeness of the character using both expert opinion and participant judgments. Next to that, we investigated the effect of movement and morbidity. The results confirm the existence of the uncanny valley effect for virtual animals, especially with respect to familiarity and commonality, for both still and moving images. The effect was particularly pronounced for morbid images. For naturalness and attractiveness, the effect was only present in the expert-based ranking, but not in the participant-based ranking. No uncanny valley effect was detected for interestingness and animateness. This investigation revealed that the appearance of virtual animals directly affects user perception and thus, presumably, impacts user experience when used in applied settings

Can virtual reality act as an affective machine? The wild animal embodiment experience and the importance of appearance

In view of the growing urgency to protect wildlife, the general goal of our research is to develop an immersive virtual experience where users can step into the ‘shoes’ of wild animals. The specific objective of this research is to explore the possibility of creating a strong emotional connection experience with a virtual animal body. In a game setting, users explore a simulated natural habitat of the animal. At the end of the game, users experience a distress event during which they become the target of an illegal animal hunter. The users receive physical feedback through haptic virtual reality suits (vibrating motors) that mimic the sensation of feeling pain of a hunter's shot. We compare the perceived pain, empathy, immersion, and embodiment experience evoked through a game character with a natural body (beaver), with an artificial body (robot beaver), and an amorphous body. The results of this investigation show a significant effect of game character appearance and perceived pain during the distress event. Moreover, we find a significant effect of game character appearance on immersion. These results suggest that the design of the game character appearance can influence users’ emotional connectedness to the character and the game experience

Los materiales educativos para el área de Tecnología e Informática en los colegios distritales de Bogotá

El presente artículo pretende mostrar los resultados de una investigación sobre materiales educativos en el área de Tecnología e Informática. La investigación parte de mostrar las diferentes tendencias que a la hora de adquirir los distintos materiales educativos en el área de Tecnología e Informática tienen los docentes vinculados a la Secretaria de Educación Distrital y para ello, como instrumento estudio se utilizaron las bases de datos de la “Vitrina Pedagógica”

XR Academia: Research and Experiences in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Artificial Intelligence in Latin America and Europe

The book XR Academia: Research and Experiences in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Artificial Intelligence in Latin America and Europe, has at its core the objective of making immersive technology accessible and visible worldwide, with the simultaneous breaking-down of linguistic barriers. Both European and Latin American authors can read each other’s work(s), allowing knowledge and experience in extended reality to be shared. Another important aspect of XR Academia is its attempt to introduce an open science contribution to the issues of immersive technologies, in order to inspire new generations that do not have access to increasingly expensive publications. This volume includes fourteen selected chapters from presenters from the 2020 and 2021 events. These chapters describe research and experiences on a wide range of XR applications, which include entertainment, health, narration, education, psychotherapy, guidance, language, culture and arts. Considering that great inventions and innovations are developed in Latin America but fail to be published internationally, our aim was to open a door to allow the permanent exchange between two languages: Spanish and English

Proyecto robarte - promover los procesos de investigación por medio de la robótica y las TICS utilizando un enfoque constructivista en las áreas de tecnología y artes en un Colegio Distrital

ilustracionesMagíster en EducaciónMaestrí

Virtual Character Design and its potential to foster Empathy, Immersion, and Collaboration Skills in Video Games and Virtual Reality Simulations

In this dissertation, we primarily researched whether virtual animals’ visual appearances can affect users’ perceptions and foster 21st Century Learning Skills (i.e., creativity, communication, critical thinking, and collaborative skills) within immersive technology. The results of this thesis showed that the visual design of the virtual character can significantly affect users’ cognition, empathy, and immersion perception. However, we found that visual appearance does not impact users’ perception of virtual embodiment and situational empathy in certain circumstances. A key element is the effect that the level of naturalness and artificiality of the visual design of the virtual character has upon students, especially when it has a non-human form, as is the case with virtual animals. The contribution of this dissertation can be applied to reduce rejection or apathy reactions (e.g., uncanny valley effect) and a high level of immersion in non-human virtual characters. This research can help people feel or perceive the animal’s life from the first perspective in a virtual reality simulation. In robotics, new design possibilities for zoomorphic robots can be explored in online education. A natural progression of this work would be to analyze whether and to what extent utilizing artificial intelligence to develop authentic and believable conversational virtual characters can foster 21st Century Learning Skills in virtual learning environments