Avatar In Virtual Environment Research Articles

Learning from humans to build social cognition among robots.

Self-organized groups of robots have generally coordinated their behaviors using quite simple social interactions. Although simple interactions are sufficient for some group behaviors, future research needs to investigate more elaborate forms of coordination, such as social cognition, to progress towards real deployments. In this perspective, we define social cognition among robots as the combination of social inference, social learning, social influence, and knowledge transfer, and propose that these abilities can be established in robots by building underlying mechanisms based on behaviors observed in humans. We review key social processes observed in humans that could inspire valuable capabilities in robots and propose that relevant insights from human social cognition can be obtained by studying human-controlled avatars in virtual environments that have the correct balance of embodiment and constraints. Such environments need to allow participants to engage in embodied social behaviors, for instance through situatedness and bodily involvement, but, at the same time, need to artificially constrain humans to the operational conditions of robots, for instance in terms of perception and communication. We illustrate our proposed experimental method with example setups in a multi-user virtual environment.

"I've talked without intending to": Self-disclosure and Reciprocity via Embodied Avatar

Considering the importance of self-disclosure in building relationships, it is vital to investigate how self-disclosure is affected via avatars in virtual environments, as they are likely to become increasingly popular. Previous work has shown that using avatars increases friendliness and honesty. However, issues such as how and what types of avatars affect self-disclosure and reciprocity have not been fully explored. We conducted a study with 108 participants (54 dyads) discussing a personal topic using one of three communication media: videoconferencing, avatars with avatar-self appearance similarity, or avatars without avatar-self appearance similarity. The results showed that self-disclosure is most encouraged via the avatars without similarity. Reciprocity was formed via both types of avatars but not videoconferencing. Interestingly, although the participants disclosed more about themselves via avatars than via videoconferencing, there was no difference in their subjective experiences. It means that avatar users can disclose more about themselves without being particularly aware that they are using avatars, which suggests the usefulness of avatars to understand people's candid thoughts and feelings. Finally, we discuss the design implications for applications requiring self-disclosure.

Editorial Comment: On the Possibilities of AI, Performance Studies, and Digital Cohabitation

Editorial Comment:On the Possibilities of AI, Performance Studies, and Digital Cohabitation Sean Metzger Over the three years that I initially conceived and eventually edited this special issue, I have become convinced of the pressing need to think through the intersections of performance studies and artificial intelligence (AI). Many factors shape this belief, but they might be summarized in a relatively succinct formulation: Code is performative, and interfaces are theatrical; the elaborations of these claims reveal the shifting of both human and machine ontologies as the networks we inhabit proliferate. To a large extent, the constituent essays in this volume complicate and extend such ideas. The following editorial grounds these elaborations and provides one pathway for viewing their collective charge. Scholars of digital media have established the performativity of computer code.1 For example, Lisa Nakamura has pointed to the performative acts that occur as users create avatars in virtual environments.2 N. Katherine Hayles has explored performativity to account for how computational theory might shift the linguistic framework of this concept provided by J. L. Austin: Computational theory treats computer languages as if they were, in Austin's terms, performative utterances. Although material changes do take place when computers process code (magnetic polarities are changed on a disk), it is the act of attaching significance to these physical changes that constitutes computation as such. … Whereas in performative utterances saying is doing because the action performed is symbolic in nature and does not require physical action in the world, at the basic level of computation doing is saying because physical actions also have a symbolic dimension that corresponds directly to computation.3 From a related perspective, Wendy Chun refers to code as "an inhumanly perfect 'performative' uttered by no one. Unlike any other law or performative utterance, code almost always does what it says because it needs no human acknowledgment."4 Code within this context generally denotes steps or commands for a computer to execute. Coding pertains to, but is not limited to, AI, which relies on sophisticated algorithms. A high-performance algorithm generally refers to any complex formula that "optimally organizes the intake of input and the production of output."5 AI's processes of decision-making often remain unknown, a black box. The ways such algorithms [End Page xiii] increasingly structure our lives have become ever more vexing, leading to what Safiya Noble has called "algorithmic oppression" as "fundamental to the operating system of the web" in her writing on search engines.6 In Noble's research, the results of algorithmic search processes yielded disturbing presentations of bodies for consumption; put otherwise, the histrionic display of Black women on porn sites substituted one vision of femininity for the one that Noble sought (specifically, material that might be interesting to some of the youth in her family). Typing "black girls" in a search engine in 2010 produced unexpected iterations of ostensibly Black womanhood. This example demonstrates both the performative nature of the algorithm and also points to the theatricality of the interface. Broadly speaking, discussions about computers often use "screen" as shorthand for the specific structure called the graphic user interface (GUI). However, as Johanna Drucker has explained, such usage eschews the complexities of human–computer interaction (HCI) that involve keyboards and the like used for "remediating common tasks as formal instructions coded into a plan of menus or buttons."7 Automated interfaces involve aural, visual, and tactile sensory modalities.8 As technology advanced, "graphical icons … no longer just looked like objects; they could also mimic the behavior of the things they resembled."9 Many implications follow from this statement, but Drucker offers one illustration relevant to theatricality in particular: "The GUI is a mediating scrim, a boundary space in which we interact with an abstraction of computation … neither the file folders nor the other objects in the screen space are things; they are icons that represent behaviors and actions we want to perform … and they interpellate a user through disciplinary and scopic regimes."10 She further explains that the GUI effects a "constitutive exchange" that involves "cognitive adaptation and change" through which the interface facilitates "individual and collective subject formation."11 Drucker does not mention theatre studies or...

Embodiment in Virtual Environments: The Role of Working Memory in Experiencing Presence as Revealed via Eye Tracking

Working memory capacity (WMC) is critical in maintaining goal-directed behavior and in inhibiting task irrelevant or conflicting thoughts. Using eye tracking data, the current study developed measures to investigate users' experiences of presence. We investigated the cognitive processing mechanisms of feelings of presence by examining how users of varying WMC coordinate their attention between their actions in using external controllers for computer mediated environments, and the actions produced by their avatars in virtual environments. To rule out the possibility of participants acting out of social pressure, a well-practiced everyday task with minimal social component was used. Participants performed vegetable cutting tasks in a desktop virtual environment by controlling an avatar's arm, with no pressure (Experiment 1) versus while pressured to improve the evenness of their cuts (Experiment 2). The results showed that high WMC participants experienced higher degrees of presence, as indicated by the attention allocated to the avatar's hand and to task planning. Under performance pressure, low WMC participants became more immersed in the tasks. The mechanisms of adaptive and personalized presence in virtual world simulation training environments are discussed in light of our findings on the effects of pressure and individual differences of WMC in experiencing presence.

Reflections of the extended self: Visual self-representation in avatar-mediated environments

We examine the relationship between avatars in virtual environments and the people they represent. We find that people (balancing the motives of self-verification and self-enhancement) design their avatars to be similar to their real selves, but with some enhancements that are more attractive. In particular, users most enhance on physical attributes that they perceive to be weak in real life. We also find that avatar attractiveness affects online behavioral traits such as extroversion and loudness. Lastly, we find support for a hierarchy of physical variation across online roles whereby people retain core identity elements (such as gender and race) across all their avatars, but they change peripheral elements (such as hair and clothing, and even face). We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for business and society.

The study of ethnic attitudes during interactions with avatars in virtual environments

The study of ethnic attitudes during interactions with avatars in virtual environments

Conditions for Inducing Sense of Body Ownership to Bird Avatar in Virtual Environment

Conditions for Inducing Sense of Body Ownership to Bird Avatar in Virtual Environment

Model-based generation of personalized full-body 3D avatars from uncalibrated multi-view photographs

According to a number of studies, the use of personalized avatars in virtual environments can enhance the immersion experience of users and the effectiveness of communication between different players. The benefits of using personalized avatars in conjunction with recent technological developments in Virtual Reality (VR) prompted an increasing demand for low-cost systems that are capable of fast and easy generation of personal avatars for use in VR applications. In this paper we present a novel model-based technique that is capable of generating personalized full-body 3D avatars from orthogonal photographs. The proposed method utilizes a statistical model of human 3D shape and a multi-view statistical 2D shape model of its corresponding silhouettes. Our technique is automatic, requiring minimal user intervention, and does not need a calibrated camera. Each component of our proposed technique is extensively evaluated and validated, in an attempt to test the geometric accuracy and identifiability of generated avatars. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of the proposed method for generating and importing animation-ready avatars in collaborative VR environments.

Effects of interpersonal distance during interactions with avatars in virtual environments

Effects of interpersonal distance during interactions with avatars in virtual environments

Avatars Versus Agents: A Meta-Analysis Quantifying the Effect of Agency on Social Influence

Existing research has investigated whether virtual representations perceived to be controlled by humans (i.e., avatars) or those perceived to be controlled by computer algorithms (i.e., agents) are more influential. A meta-analysis (N = 32) examined the model of social influence in virtual environments (Blascovich, 2002) and investigated whether agents and avatars in virtual environments elicit different levels of social influence. Results indicated that perceived avatars produced stronger responses than perceived agents. Level of immersion (desktop vs. fully immersive), dependent variable type (subjective vs. objective), task type (competitive vs. cooperative vs. neutral), and actual control of the representation (human vs. computer) were examined as moderators. An interaction effect revealed that studies conducted on a desktop that used objective measures showed a stronger effect for agency than those that were conducted on a desktop but used subjective measures. Competitive and cooperative tasks showed greater agency effects than neutral tasks. Studies in which both conditions were actually human controlled showed greater agency effects than studies in which both conditions were actually computer controlled. We discuss theoretical and design implications for human–computer interaction and computer-mediated communication.

Virtual Reality Experiments Linking Social Environment and Psychosis: A Pilot Study

Initial studies with healthy subjects and individuals with high risk for psychosis have suggested that virtual reality (VR) environments may be used to investigate social and psychological mechanisms of psychosis. One small study reported that VR can safely be used in individuals with current persecutory delusions. The present pilot study investigated the feasibility and potential negative side effects of exposure to different virtual social risk environments in patients with first episode psychosis and in healthy controls. Seventeen patients with first episode psychosis (FEP) and 24 healthy control subjects (HC) participated in four virtual experiments during which they walked for 3.5-4 minutes in a virtual café, looking for avatars with digits on their clothing. The level of paranoid thoughts, as well as psychological, physiological, and behavioral correlates of paranoid thoughts, were measured in different virtual social risk environments, manipulating two factors: population density and ethnicity of avatars. FEP and HC frequently had paranoid thoughts about avatars. Paranoia in the real world correlated strongly with paranoid thoughts about avatars in virtual environments (Spearman's ρ=0.67 and 0.54 in FEP and HC respectively, p<0.01). FEP kept a smaller distance to avatars than HC. In FEP, but not in HC, galvanic skin response was significantly stronger in virtual environments with avatars of other ethnicity than in the own ethnicity condition. These results suggest that VR is an acceptable and sufficiently realistic method to use in patients with first episode psychosis. VR research may help to increase our understanding of the social and psychological mechanisms of psychosis and to develop new treatment applications.

"Twin Spin"

We have built haptic interfaces featuring smartphones and tablets that use magnetometerderived orientation sensing to modulate virtual displays, especially spatial sound, allowing, for instance, each side of a karaoke recording to be separately steered around a periphonic display. Embedding such devices into a spinnable affordance allows a "spinning plate"- style interface, a novel interaction technique. Either static (pointing) or dynamic (spinning) modes can be used to control "whirled" multimodal display, including a rotary motion platform, panoramic movies, and the positions of avatars in virtual environments.

Biologically-inspired heuristics for human-like walking trajectories toward targets and around obstacles

We describe simple heuristics, based on perceptual variables, that produce human-like trajectories towards moving and stationary targets, and around moving and stationary obstacles. Interception of moving and stationary objects can be achieved through regulation of self-movement to maintain a target at a constant eccentricity, or by cancelling the change (drift) in the eccentricity of the target. We first show how a constant eccentricity strategy can be extended to home in on optimal paths and avoid obstacles. We then identify a simple visual speed ratio that signals a future collision, and the change in path needed for avoidance. The combination of heuristics based on eccentricity and the speed-ratio produces human-like behaviour. The heuristics can be used to animate avatars in virtual environments or to guide mobile robots. Combined with higher-level goal setting and way-finding behaviours, such navigation heuristics could provide the foundation for generative models of natural human locomotion.

Quantitative analysis of visibility determinations for networked virtual environments

The Area-Of-Interest (AOI) model is a simple and popular technique used in many applications to determine the region which needs to be considered and processed for each entity (e.g., user). One example application is object visibility determination around user-representing avatars in virtual environments or networked games. There exist a number of variations of the AOI model and in our prior work we have demonstrated how object-oriented visibility determination is more suitable for networked virtual environments than conventional user-oriented visibility determination. Here we extend our work to study a unified and comprehensive analytical model that reveals fundamental properties about the different visibility determination techniques under a variety of virtual environment settings. We also present what the best operational scenarios are for each different approach. Although our discussion and analytical results are focused on the visibility domain, the arguments and conclusions can be extended to various applications or services where spatial attributes are required.

TRAINING BASED ON REAL-TIME MOTION EVALUATION FOR FUNCTIONAL REHABILITATION IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT

One of the most effective applications of virtual reality (VR) in physical rehabilitation is training, where patients are trained for sequence decision-making in special situations presented in virtual environment. In this application, the evaluation of the movement of the subject performing a physical task is crucial. A good evaluation of the motion is necessary to follow the progression of the patient during his training session. Therefore, it helps therapist to better supervise therapeutic planning. Actually, the performance of the patient's training is determined by subjective observation of the therapist. Our approach is to propose a system that allows the patient to perform his training and to evaluate the progress of training in an autonomous way. This system consists of a motion analysis technique for a rehabilitation application where the patient is represented by his own avatar in virtual environment. The task performance required from the patient is his capability to reproduce in real time a movement. The real-time motion evaluation technique is based on the time series data matching method called Longest Common Sub-Sequence (hereafter LCSS). It is used to calculate distance between the reference motion of virtual avatar and the captured motion data of the patients and thus is used to determine how well the patients are doing during the training. The complexity of the technique proposed is in the order of O (δ) in which δ is a constant matching window size. Our prototype application is based on Tai-chi movements which have shown many health benefits and are increasingly used for therapeutic purposes.

Nested Beliefs, Goals, Duties, and Agents Reasoning About their Own or Each Other’s Body in the TIMUR Model: A Formalism for the Narrative of Tamerlane and the Three Painters

This article develops two threads. The first thread argues that the narrative dimension of social interaction is important to societies of embodied agents: not only to animated avatars in virtual environments (for which, behaviour specification languages are useful, simplifying the distinct task of feeding a narrative into the system), but also, arguably, in societies of robots, because categories of patterns of action can arguably be usefully captured by modifications of levels of abstraction originally developed by structuralism for folktale studies. This first thread does not depend, for its validity, on the second thread. The other thread of this paper is to analyze a story of interaction among characters with different social positioning, such that reasoning on the body of one of them is central. We develop the analysis by resorting to episodic formulae, a method of representation developed by the present author and often applied during the last several years.

Geometry‐driven physical interaction between avatars and virtual environments

AbstractWe present an interactive technique on virtual contact handling for avatars in virtual environments using geometry‐driven physics. If a contact has occurred between an articulated avatar and a virtual environment, the global penetration depth and contact points are estimated based on a fast local penetration depth computation for decomposed convex pieces. The penetration depth and contact information are then used to resolve overlap between the avatar and the virtual environment. If applicable, joint angles for an articulated body are computed using an inverse kinematics approach based on cyclic coordinate descent. Resulting dynamic response with friction is modeled with impulse‐based dynamics under the Coulomb friction law. We demonstrate the algorithm on a modestly complex virtual environment. The resulting system is able to maintain an interactive frame rate of 30–60 Hz. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Capturing behaviour for the use of avatars in virtual environments.

Avatars, representations of people in virtual environments, are subject to human control. However, for most applications, it is impractical for a person to directly control each joint in a complex avatar. Rather, people must be allowed to specify complex behaviours with simple instructions and the avatar permitted to select the correct movements in sequence to execute the instruction. This requires a variety of technologies that are currently available. Human behaviour must be captured and stored it so that it can be retrieved at a later time for use by the avatar. This has been done successfully with a variety of haptic interfaces, with visual observation of human head movements, and with verbal behaviour in natural language applications. The behaviour must be broken into atomic actions that can be sequenced with a regular grammar, and an appropriate grammar developed. Finally, a user interface must be developed so that a person can deliver instructions to the avatar.