Social VR Research Articles

Inverse Garment and Pattern Modeling with a Differentiable Simulator

AbstractThe capability to generate simulation‐ready garment models from 3D shapes of clothed people will significantly enhance the interpretability of captured geometry of real garments, as well as their faithful reproduction in the digital world. This will have notable impact on fields like shape capture in social VR, and virtual try‐on in the fashion industry. To align with the garment modeling process standardized by the fashion industry and cloth simulation software, it is required to recover 2D patterns, which are then placed around the wearer's body model and seamed prior to the draping simulation. This involves an inverse garment design problem, which is the focus of our work here: Starting with an arbitrary target garment geometry, our system estimates its animatable replica along with its corresponding 2D pattern. Built upon a differentiable cloth simulator, it runs an optimization process that is directed towards minimizing the deviation of the simulated garment shape from the target geometry, while maintaining desirable properties such as left‐to‐right symmetry. Experimental results on various real‐world and synthetic data show that our method outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods in producing both high‐quality garment models and accurate 2D patterns.

Does Sense of Presence Affect People's Politeness? Comparing VRChat and Soul App

Mobile social activities are among the most popular forms of socialization today, and has become an integral part of people's daily lives. With advances in technology and the rise of affordable virtual reality devices, VR social interaction through avatar creation and support for advanced body tracking capabilities has the potential to lead the next revolution in the digitization of social activities. However, whether in VR or on mobile phones, user politeness and friendliness are always crucial factors influencing the user experience of social applications. While past research has examined online politeness, less attention has been paid to comparing politeness perceptions between social VR and mobile applications. In the meantime, given that the core characteristics of VR socializing is its heightened sense of presence, research by many scholars in the relevant field also indicates that presence often positively correlates with positive emotions. Therefore, this study will explore how people perceive and express verbal and non-verbal politeness behaviors in different social applications (VR chat, Soul app), as well as investigate how the sense of presence provided by the devices influences people's expression of politeness. The study's results identified the polite and impolite behaviors that people had perceived in VR and the mobile App. Lastly, the study also reported that VR applications that offer a heightened sense of presence can better facilitate politeness.

Co-design in virtual environments with 3D scanned childcare rooms in social virtual reality

AbstractThis research proposes a virtual environment (VE) for co-designing in early childhood education and care settings using a social VR platform with 3D-scanned childcare rooms. Co-design workshops were analyzed focusing on perceived presence and experience and workshop outcomes. The results indicate a high level of presence in the VE, with unique advantages like facilitating 3D prototyping. However, challenges such as unbalanced prototyping tools distribution were also noted. The study highlights the potential of VEs with 3D scanned rooms in co-design.

Immersive Storytelling in Social Virtual Reality for Human-Centered Learning about Sensitive Historical Events

History is a subject that students often find uninspiring in school education. This paper explores the application of social VR metaverse platforms in combination with interactive, nonlinear web platforms designed for immersive storytelling to support learning about a sensitive historical event, namely the Asia Minor Catastrophe. The goal was to design an alternative method of learning history and investigate if it would engage students and foster their independence. A mixed-methods research design was applied. Thirty-four (n = 34) adult participants engaged in the interactive book and VR space over the course of three weeks. After an online workshop, feedback was collected from participants through a custom questionnaire. The quantitative data from the questionnaire were analyzed statistically utilizing IBM SPSS, while the qualitative responses were coded thematically. This study reveals that these two tools can enhance historical education by increasing student engagement, interaction, and understanding. Participants appreciated the immersive and participatory nature of the material. This study concludes that these technologies have the potential to enhance history education by promoting active participation and engagement.

Social VR design features and experiential outcomes: narrative review and relationship map for dyadic agent conversations

The application of virtual reality to the study of conversation and social interaction is a relatively new field of study. While the affordances of VR in the domain compared to traditional methods are promising, the current state of the field is plagued by a lack of methodological standards and shared understanding of how design features of the immersive experience impact participants. In order to address this, this paper develops a relationship map between design features and experiential outcomes, along with expectations for how those features interact with each other. Based on the results of a narrative review drawing from diverse fields, this relationship map focuses on dyadic conversations with agents. The experiential outcomes chosen include presence & engagement, psychological discomfort, and simulator sickness. The relevant design features contained in the framework include scenario agency, visual fidelity, agent automation, environmental context, and audio features. We conclude by discussing the findings of the review and framework, such as the multimodal nature of social VR being highlighted, and the importance of environmental context, and lastly provide recommendations for future research in social VR.

Automatic Control of Virtual Cameras for Capturing and Sharing User Focus and Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Reality

As VR technology advances and network speeds rise, social VR platforms are gaining traction. These platforms enable multiple users to socialize and collaborate within a shared virtual environment using avatars. Virtual reality, with its ability to augment visual information, offers distinct advantages for collaboration over traditional methods. Prior research has shown that merely sharing another person’s viewpoint can significantly boost collaborative efficiency. This paper presents an innovative non-verbal communication technique designed to enhance the sharing of visual information. By employing virtual cameras, our method captures where participants are focusing and what they are interacting with, then displays these data above their avatars. The direction of the virtual camera is automatically controlled by considering the user’s gaze direction, the position of the object the user is interacting with, and the positions of other objects around that object. The automatic adjustment of these virtual cameras and the display of captured images are symmetrically conducted for all participants engaged in the virtual environment. This approach is especially beneficial in collaborative settings, where multiple users work together on a shared structure of multiple objects. We validated the effectiveness of our proposed technique through an experiment with 20 participants tasked with collaboratively building structures using block assembly.

The Nāṭyaśāstra and virtual metatheatre

ABSTRACT In this practice-based project, workshops were conducted in and out of virtual reality, exploring the transitional processes of the Nāṭyaśāstra, an ancient Sanskrit dramaturgical treatise. This project is an intercultural and technological investigation of ancient tools of liminality and how they can be applied in a virtual theatre. A virtual cave theatre was built to the design of the Nāṭyaśāstra and inhabited with seventh-century farce, Bhagavadajjukam, created in Unity game engine for VRchat, a social VR application. The project posits three positions of focus: (1) Investigating parallels of the Nāṭyaveda and the metaverse, comparing the Nāṭyaveda an ancient spiritual performance space, described in the Nāṭyaśāstra with the modern metaverse, showing them to be spaces of liminal transition in which community can explore conflict and resolution. (2) Exploring the Nāṭyaśāstra's rasa theory, codified emotional performance to engender the liminal self, creating moments akin to virtual anchors. (3) Exploring the metatheatre of the Nāṭyaśāstra applied in the virtual and its parallels to the modern concept of liminal performance. Participants explored these concepts first physically in a performance studio and then in a virtual space. These workshops were recorded, and their experiences discussed and thematically analyzed after.

Designing and Evaluating a VR Lobby for a Socially Enriching Remote Opera Watching Experience.

The latest social VR technologies have enabled users to attend traditional media and arts performances together while being geographically removed, making such experiences accessible despite budget, distance, and other restrictions. In this work, we aim at improving the way remote performances are shared by designing and evaluating a VR theatre lobby which serves as a space for users to gather, interact, and relive the common experience of watching a virtual opera. We conducted an initial test with experts ($\mathrm{N}=10$, i.e., designers and opera enthusiasts) in pairs using our VR lobby prototype, developed based on the theoretical lobby design concept. A unique aspect of our experience is its highly realistic representation of users in the virtual space. The test results guided refinements to the VR lobby structure and implementation, aiming to improve the user experience and align it more closely with the social VR lobby's intended purpose. With the enhanced prototype, we ran a between-subject controlled study ($\mathrm{N}=40$) to compare the user experience in the social VR lobby between individuals and paired participants. To do so, we designed and validated a questionnaire to measure the user experience in the VR lobby. Results of our mixed-methods analysis, including interviews, questionnaire results, and user behavior, reveal the strength of our social VR lobby in connecting with other users, consuming the opera in a deeper manner, and exploring new possibilities beyond what is common in real life. All supplemental materials are available at https://github.com/cwi-dis/IEEEVR2024-VRLobby.

User Experience of Different Groups in Social VR Applications: An Empirical Study Based on User Reviews

User Experience of Different Groups in Social VR Applications: An Empirical Study Based on User Reviews

Visual Indicators Representing Avatars' Authenticity in Social Virtual Reality and Their Impacts on Perceived Trustworthiness.

Photorealistic avatars show great potential in social VR and VR collaboration. However, identity and privacy issues are threatening avatars' authenticity in social VR. In addition to the necessary authentication and protection, effective solutions are needed to convey avatars' authenticity status to users and thereby enhance the overall trustworthiness. We designed several visual indicators (VIs) using static or dynamic visual effects on photorealistic avatars and evaluated their effectiveness in visualizing avatars' authenticity status. In this study we explored suitable attributes and designs for conveying the authenticity of photorealistic avatars and influencing their perceived trustworthiness. Furthermore, we investigated how different interactivity levels influence their effectiveness (the avatar was either presented in a static image, an animated video clip, or an immersive virtual environment). Our findings showed that using a full name can increase trust, while most other VIs could decrease users' trust. We also found that interactivity levels significantly impacted users' trust and the effectiveness of VIs. Based on our results, we developed design guidelines for visual indicators as effective tools to convey authenticity, as a first step towards the improvement of trustworthiness in social VR with identity management.

Social VR: A Promising Platform for Enhancing Mental Wellness among College Students

ABSTRACTIn recent decades, there has been an alarming increase in the number of university and college students struggling with intensifying psychological distress, which has become a mental health crisis on campuses. To address this issue, this study proposes social VR as a potential platform to promote social interaction and improve mental well‐ being for college students. In this study, 68 students explored a variety of social VR applications in a classroom setting. Results showed that a) virtual space, audio, avatar, communication types, and activities were key contributing features that facilitated social interaction among college students in social VR and have the potential to enhance mental wellness, and b) the anonymous nature, communicative cues, and designated private areas provided by social VR platforms were effective in facilitating self‐disclosure, indicating social VR's potential in delivering mental health services such as individual and group counseling and therapy. This study provides evidence that social VR can enhance social interaction and communication while serving as a platform for professional mental health care, a venue that has yet to be explored in previous studies.

VR 기반 경도인지장애의 인지기능 향상을 위한 콘텐츠 디자인 연구

The increasing societal issue of dementia, resulting from rapid aging, has emphasized the significance of proactive intervention in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which is a pre-dementia stage. This study examined six cognitive functions of individuals with MCI, including memory, language ability, attention, visual-spatial skills, executive function, and orientation, based on prior research. A case analysis was conducted on three types of VR content: gamified, interactive virtual reality, and social VR. The study identified effective VR content design elements for cognitive improvement. It proposed design directions that focused on storytelling related to everyday life, user-friendly interactive designs for easy communication, a rich communicative environment with virtual avatars, and prioritizing user convenience and accessibility. These directions are expected to contribute to enhancing cognitive functions and preventing dementia.

First Steps to Improve Cybersecurity Behaviour – a Virtual Reality Experience

Internet is completely integrated and absorbed in our life. Facilitating transfer of files across the world or wiring money from the couch, we could not imagine a world without it anymore. With these benefits, as with any new technology, there is also the introduction of risks and threats, for internet primarily in the form of cybercrime and online fraud. To reduce victimisation of this cybercrime, interventions are used to teach people to not perform risky behaviour. To overcome criticisms of current training materials, such as being tedious and boring, we created an Immersive Virtual Reality experience. By using a 4-step design process (i.e. ideation, specification, realisation, and evaluation), we designed a playful VR environment with simplistic non player characters to train the user to perform basic cybersecurity tasks in the right way. In the simulation, the participants are exposed to the challenge of creating a new password and a potential ransomware attack using USB storage device. The program allows for monitoring the user’s cybersecurity knowledge and behaviour and provides feedback. An evaluation of the VR environment among 16 respondents using a pretest-posttest evaluation with the Human Aspect Information Security Questionnaire (HAIS-Q) showed a statistically significant increase in scores after exposure to the VR environment. The system showed an above average SUS score. These initial findings indicate that a VR environment can be an alternative to consider for future development of cybersecurity interventions. Future research could expand our social VR environment with additional cybersecurity challenges, real-time actors, and running simulations among a broader audience to also investigate the retention of knowledge and skills.

ViGather: Inclusive Virtual Conferencing with a Joint Experience Across Traditional Screen Devices and Mixed Reality Headsets

Teleconferencing is poised to become one of the most frequent use cases of immersive platforms, since it supports high levels of presence and embodiment in collaborative settings. On desktop and mobile platforms, teleconferencing solutions are already among the most popular apps and accumulate significant usage time---not least due to the pandemic or as a desirable substitute for air travel or commuting. In this paper, we present ViGather, an immersive teleconferencing system that integrates users of all platform types into a joint experience via equal representation and a first-person experience. ViGather renders all participants as embodied avatars in one shared scene to establish co-presence and elicit natural behavior during collocated conversations, including nonverbal communication cues such as eye contact between participants as well as body language such as turning one's body to another person or using hand gestures to emphasize parts of a conversation during the virtual hangout. Since each user embodies an avatar and experiences situated meetings from an egocentric perspective no matter the device they join from, ViGather alleviates potential concerns about self-perception and appearance while mitigating potential 'Zoom fatigue', as users' self-views are not shown. For participants in Mixed Reality, our system leverages the rich sensing and reconstruction capabilities of today's headsets. For users of tablets, laptops, or PCs, ViGather reconstructs the user's pose from the device's front-facing camera, estimates eye contact with other participants, and relates these non-verbal cues to immediate avatar animations in the shared scene. Our evaluation compared participants' behavior and impressions while videoconferencing in groups of four inside ViGather with those in Meta Horizon as a baseline for a social VR setting. Participants who participated on traditional screen devices (e.g., laptops and desktops) using ViGather reported a significantly higher sense of physical, spatial, and self-presence than when using Horizon, while all perceived similar levels of active social presence when using Virtual Reality headsets. Our follow-up study confirmed the importance of representing users on traditional screen devices as reconstructed avatars for perceiving self-presence.

Understanding the effect of a virtual moderator on people’s perception in remote discussion using social VR

Social VR enables people to join a remote discussion by keeping a high social presence and physical proximity using embodied avatars. However, the missing nonverbal cues, such as mutual eye contact and nuanced facial expression, make it challenging for distributed members to manage turn-taking, which could lead to unequal participation and affect trust building. Therefore, we propose a virtual moderator to make distributed members feel included by seeing their nonverbal behavior. The virtual moderator was designed with a “prompt Q&A″ feature to enable users to share feedback and an “attention guidance” feature to encourage participation. The preliminary result of a controlled experiment in social VR with 30 participants showed that seeing the virtual moderator’s body orientation enhanced participants’ psychological safety. In contrast, the prompt Q&A feature enhanced the perceived co-presence of their remote counterparts. We discussed how nonverbal behavior could be designed using a virtual moderator to shape human perception of the group discussion in social VR. We also pointed out challenges when providing multiple supports simultaneously in social VR.

The Dating Metaverse: Why We Need to Design for Consent in Social VR.

This paper presents a participatory design study about how consent to interaction and observation of other users can be supported in social VR. We use emerging VR dating applications, colloquially called the dating metaverse, as context for study of harm-mitigative design structures in social VR given the evidence of harms that occur through dating apps and general social VR applications individually, and the harms that may occur through their convergence. Through design workshops with potential dating metaverse users in the Midwest United States (n=18) we elucidate nonconsensual experiences that should be prevented and participant-created designs for informing and exchanging consent in VR. We position consent as a valuable lens for which to design preventative solutions to harm in social VR by reframing harm as unwanted experiences that happen because of the absence of mechanics to support users in giving and denying agreement to a virtual experience before it occurs.

Measuring Interpersonal Trust towards Virtual Humans with a Virtual Maze Paradigm.

Virtual humans, including virtual agents and avatars, play an increasingly important role as VR technology advances. For example, virtual humans are used as digital bodies of users in social VR or as interfaces for AI assistants in online financing. Interpersonal trust is an essential prerequisite in real-life interactions, as well as in the virtual world. However, to date, there are no established interpersonal trust measurement tools specifically for virtual humans in virtual reality. This study fills the gap, by contributing a novel validated behavioural tool to measure interpersonal trust towards a specific virtual social interaction partner in social VR. This validated paradigm is inspired by a previously proposed virtual maze task that measures trust towards virtual characters. In the current study, a variant of this paradigm was implemented. The task of the users (the trustors) is to navigate through a maze in virtual reality, where they can interact with a virtual human (the trustee). They can choose to 1) ask for advice and 2) follow the advice from the virtual human if they want to. These measures served as behavioural measures of trust. We conducted a validation study with 70 participants in a between-subject design. The two conditions did not differ in the content of the advice but in the appearance, tone of voice and engagement of the trustees (alleged as avatars controlled by other participants). Results indicate that the experimental manipulation was successful, as participants rated the virtual human as more trustworthy in the trustworthy condition than in the untrustworthy condition. Importantly, this manipulation affected the trust behaviour of our participants, who, in the trustworthy condition, asked for advice more often and followed advice more often, indicating that the paradigm is sensitive to assessing interpersonal trust towards virtual humans. Thus, our paradigm can be used to measure differences in interpersonal trust towards virtual humans and may serve as a valuable research tool to study trust in virtual reality.

Assessing Virtual Reality Spaces for Elders Using Image-Based Sentiment Analysis and Stress Level Detection.

Seniors, in order to be able to fight loneliness, need to communicate with other people and be engaged in activities to keep their minds active to increase their social capital. There is an intensified interest in the development of social virtual reality environments, either by commerce or by academia, to address the problem of social isolation of older people. Due to the vulnerability of the social group involved in this field of research, the need for the application of evaluation methods regarding the proposed VR environments becomes even more important. The range of techniques that can be exploited in this field is constantly expanding, with visual sentiment analysis being a characteristic example. In this study, we introduce the use of image-based sentiment analysis and behavioural analysis as a technique to assess a social VR space for elders and present some promising preliminary results.

Understanding Safety Risks and Safety Design in Social VR Environments

Understanding emerging safety risks in nuanced social VR spaces and how existing safety features are used is crucial for the future development of safe and inclusive 3D social worlds. Prior research on safety risks in social VR is mainly based on interview or survey data about social VR users' experiences and opinions, which lacks "in-situ observations" of how individuals react to these risks. Using two empirical studies, this paper seeks to understand safety risks and safety design in social VR. In Study 1, we investigated 212 YouTube videos and their transcripts that document social VR users' immediate experiences of safety risks as victims, attackers, or bystanders. We also analyzed spectators' reactions to these risks shown in comments to the videos. In Study 2, we summarized 13 safety features across various social VR platforms and mapped how each existing safety feature in social VR can mitigate the risks identified in Study 1. Based on the uniqueness of social VR interaction dynamics and users' multi-modal simulated reactions, we call for further re-thinking and re-approaching safety designs for future social VR environments and propose potential design implications for future safety protection mechanisms in social VR.

Corporeal Interactions inVRChat: Situational Intensity and Body Synchronization

Erving Goffman's work on interaction in everyday life focuses on joint spatio‐temporal and face‐to‐face situations and denies the constitution of social situations via mediatized interaction. In contrast, we argue that shared immersive media such as Social Virtual Reality enable intense, delocalized forms of co‐present interactions that constitute closeness and intimacy. By discussing Goffman in the context of current works that open up his perspective for mediatization, we present an understanding of social situations that focuses on intensity and synchronized embodiment—physical, digital, and corporeal. On the Social VR platform VRChat, synchronized bodies allow for intimate corporeal practices, such as cuddling, dancing, or cybersex. Virtual Reality technology facilitates delocalized forms of affective‐bodily interaction, thereby contributing to the social negotiation of mediatized closeness and intimacy—despite physical distance. Our findings are based on a digital ethnographic analysis of lifeworlds and practices of enthusiast VRChat‐users, combined with qualitative semi‐structured interviews.