Blowing In The Wind: Increasing Copresence With A Virtual Human Via Airflow Influence In Augmented Reality

Keywords

Computing methodologies → Mixed / augmented reality; Human-centered computing → User studies; Mixed / augmented reality

Abstract

In a social context where two or more interlocutors interact with each other in the same space, one's sense of copresence with the others is an important factor for the quality of communication and engagement in the interaction. Although augmented reality (AR) technology enables the superposition of virtual humans (VHs) as interlocutors in the real world, the resulting sense of copresence is usually far lower than with a real human interlocutor. In this paper, we describe a human-subject study in which we explored and investigated the effects that subtle multi-modal interaction between the virtual environment and the real world, where a VH and human participants were co-located, can have on copresence. We compared two levels of gradually increased multi-modal interaction: (i) virtual objects being affected by real airflow as commonly experienced with fans in summer, and (ii) a VH showing awareness of this airflow. We chose airflow as one example of an environmental factor that can noticeably affect both the real and virtual worlds, and also cause subtle responses in interlocutors.We hypothesized that our two levels of treatment would increase the sense of being together with the VH gradually, i.e., participants would report higher copresence with airflow influence than without it, and the copresence would be even higher when the VH shows awareness of the airflow. The statistical analysis with the participant-reported copresence scores showed that there was an improvement of the perceived copresence with the VH when both the physical-virtual interactivity via airflow and the VH's awareness behaviors were present together. As the considered environmental factors are directed at the VH, i.e., they are not part of the direct interaction with the real human, they can provide a reasonably generalizable approach to support copresence in AR beyond the particular use case in the present experiment.

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Publication Title

ICAT-EGVE 2018 - 28th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence and 23rd Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments

Number of Pages

183-190

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.2312/egve.20181332

Socpus ID

85121643911 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85121643911

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