Virtual environments (VEs) can create collaborative and social spaces, which are increasingly important in the face of remote work and travel reduction. Recent advances, such as more open and widely available platforms, create new possibilities to observe and analyse interaction in VEs. Using a custom instrumented build of Mozilla Hubs to measure position and orientation, we conducted an academic workshop to facilitate a range of typical workshop activities. We analysed social interactions during a keynote, small group breakouts, and informal networking/hallway conversations. Our mixed-methods approach combined environment logging, observations, and semi-structured interviews. The results demonstrate how small and large spaces influenced group formation, shared attention, and personal space, where smaller rooms facilitated more cohesive groups while larger rooms made small group formation challenging but personal space more flexible. Beyond our findings, we show how the combination of data and insights can fuel collaborative spaces’ design and deliver more effective virtual workshops.

Immersive experiences – enabled by technologies such as VR, AR, 360° video and other highly immersive multimedia applications – have the potential to make interacting with various activities more inclusive for many people. This can be achieved by applying the principles of inclusive design. This panel will discuss the current challenges in designing inclusive immersive technologies, and how they should be addressed.

This paper presents a real-time emotion-annotation tool using a personal mobile device. To this end, an application based on the Valence-Arousal model was developed, following two different approaches (”Two-step Sequential Annotation” and ”One-step Matrix Annotation”). The application was tested through, an experiment where users performed annotations with each version of the app and then filled a feedback questionnaire. This questionnaire contained statements used to assess the usability and mental workload. A total of 16 (9 female) participants aged between 21 and 34 years old engaged in this experiment. Overall the results were quite encouraging in both versions, taking into account that this is still a work in progress. The ”Single-step Matrix Annotation” was considered the preferred version.

We examine the concept and characteristics of “Augmented Reality Television” (ARTV) using a four-step investigation method consisting of (1) an analysis of commonly-accepted perspectives on Augmented and Mixed Reality systems, (2) a literature survey of previous work on ARTV, (3) relevant connections with other areas of scientific investigation from TVX/IMX, such as Ambient Media, Interactive TV, and 3-D TV, and (4) by proposing a conceptual framework for ARTV called the “Augmented Reality Television Continuum.” Our work comes at a moment when the excitement and hype about the potential of AR for home entertainment has overlooked rigorous analysis and clear-cut examinations of the concepts involved, which should be the hallmark of any exact science. With this work, our goal is to draw the community’s attention toward fundamentals and first principles of ARTV and to tease out its salient qualities on solid foundations.

Augmented Reality (AR) technology has the potential to extend the screen area beyond the rigid frames of televisions. The additional display area can be used to augment televisions (TVs) with extra information tailored to individuals, for instance, the provision of access services like sign language interpretations. We invited 23 (11 in the UK, 12 in Germany) users of signed content to evaluate three methods of watching a sign language interpreted programme - one traditional in-vision method with signed programme content on TV and two AR-enabled methods in which an AR sign language interpreter (a 'half-body' version and a 'full-body' version) is projected just outside the frame of the TV presenting the programme. In the UK, participants were split 3-ways in their preferences while in Germany, half the participants preferred the traditional method followed closely by the 'half-body' version. We discuss our participants reasoning behind their preferences and implications for future research.

This paper presents the quantitative and qualitative findings from an experiment designed to evaluate a developing model of affective postures for full-body virtual characters in immersive virtual environments (IVEs). Forty-nine participants were each requested to explore a virtual environment by asking two virtual characters for instructions. The participants used a CAVE-like system to explore the environment. Participant responses and their impression of the virtual characters were evaluated through a wide variety of both quantitative and qualitative methods. Combining a controlled experimental approach with various data-collection methods provided a number of advantages such as providing a reason to the quantitative results. The quantitative results indicate that posture plays an important role in the communication of affect by virtual characters. The qualitative findings indicated that participants attribute a variety of psychological states to the behavioral cues displayed by virtual characters. In addition, participants tended to interpret the social context portrayed by the virtual characters in a holistic manner. This suggests that one aspect of the virtual scene colors the perception of the whole social context portrayed by the virtual characters. We conclude by discussing the importance of designing holistically congruent virtual characters especially in immersive settings.

This paper presents a study of the fine grain physiological responses of participants to an immersive virtual simulation of an urban environment. The analysis of differences in participant responses at various stages of the experiment (baseline recordings, training, first half and second half of the urban simulation) are examined in detail. It was found that participants typically show a stress response during the training phase and a stress response towards the end of the simulation of the urban experience.There is also some evidence that variations in the level of visual realism based the texture strategy used was associated with changes in mental stress.

Abstract This paper describes a behavioural model used to simulate realistic eye‐gaze behaviour and body animations for avatars representing participants in a shared immersive virtual environment (IVE). The model was used in a study designed to explore the impact of avatar realism on the perceived quality of communication within a negotiation scenario. Our eye‐gaze model was based on data and studies carried out on the behaviour of eye‐gaze during face‐to‐face communication. The technical features of the model are reported here. Information about the motivation behind the study, experimental procedures and a full analysis of the results obtained are given in [ 17 ].

This paper presents an experiment designed to investigate the impact of visual and behavioral realism in avatars on perceived quality of communication in an immersive virtual environment. Participants were paired by gender and were randomly assigned to a CAVE‘-like system or a head-mounted display. Both were represented by a humanoid avatar in the shared 3D environment. The visual appearance of the avatars was either basic and genderless (like a "match-stick" figure), or more photorealistic and gender-specific. Similarly, eye gaze behavior was either random or inferred from voice, to reflect different levels of behavioral realism. Our comparative analysis of 48 post-experiment questionnaires confirms earlier findings from non-immersive studies using semi-photorealistic avatars, where inferred gaze significantly outperformed random gaze. However responses to the lower-realism avatar are adversely affected by inferred gaze, revealing a significant interaction effect between appearance and behavior. We discuss the importance of aligning visual and behavioral realism for increased avatar effectiveness.