scholarly journals Indifferent or Enthusiastic? Virtual Audiences Animation and Perception in Virtual Reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yann Glémarec ◽  
Jean-Luc Lugrin ◽  
Anne-Gwenn Bosser ◽  
Aryana Collins Jackson ◽  
Cédric Buche ◽  
...  

In this paper, we present a virtual audience simulation system for Virtual Reality (VR). The system implements an audience perception model controlling the nonverbal behaviors of virtual spectators, such as facial expressions or postures. Groups of virtual spectators are animated by a set of nonverbal behavior rules representing a particular audience attitude (e.g., indifferent or enthusiastic). Each rule specifies a nonverbal behavior category: posture, head movement, facial expression and gaze direction as well as three parameters: type, frequency and proportion. In a first user-study, we asked participants to pretend to be a speaker in VR and then create sets of nonverbal behaviour parameters to simulate different attitudes. Participants manipulated the nonverbal behaviours of single virtual spectator to match a specific levels of engagement and opinion toward them. In a second user-study, we used these parameters to design different types of virtual audiences with our nonverbal behavior rules and evaluated their perceptions. Our results demonstrate our system’s ability to create virtual audiences with three types of different perceived attitudes: indifferent, critical, enthusiastic. The analysis of the results also lead to a set of recommendations and guidelines regarding attitudes and expressions for future design of audiences for VR therapy and training applications.

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Harth ◽  
Alexandra Hofmann ◽  
Mike Karst ◽  
David Kempf ◽  
Annelie Ostertag ◽  
...  

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0251057
Author(s):  
Miquel Mascaró ◽  
Francisco J. Serón ◽  
Francisco J. Perales ◽  
Javier Varona ◽  
Ramon Mas

Laughter and smiling are significant facial expressions used in human to human communication. We present a computational model for the generation of facial expressions associated with laughter and smiling in order to facilitate the synthesis of such facial expressions in virtual characters. In addition, a new method to reproduce these types of laughter is proposed and validated using databases of generic and specific facial smile expressions. In particular, a proprietary database of laugh and smile expressions is also presented. This database lists the different types of classified and generated laughs presented in this work. The generated expressions are validated through a user study with 71 subjects, which concluded that the virtual character expressions built using the presented model are perceptually acceptable in quality and facial expression fidelity. Finally, for generalization purposes, an additional analysis shows that the results are independent of the type of virtual character’s appearance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucien Brown ◽  
Bodo Winter

Abstract This study investigates the nonverbal behaviors used in two interconnected relational practices in Korean: “doing deference” towards status superiors and “performing intimacy” towards status equals. We extracted 154 interactions from Korean televised dramas that represented these two relational practices, and annotated the data for various nonverbal behaviors, including body position and orientation, facial expressions, manual gestures, and touching. Our analyses showed that the protagonists in the dramas altered their nonverbal behavior between the two relational practices according to all of the categories that we annotated. Doing deference featured erect but constrained body positions, direct bodily orientation towards the status superior, and suppression of gestures and touching. These behaviors display decreased animatedness and freedom, as well as increased effort, and increased submissiveness. In contrast, performing intimacy displayed more relaxed and reciprocal body positioning, as well as frequent gestures and touching behaviors. The results call into question analyses of politeness phenomena that solely focus on verbal elements in previous descriptions of Korean deference. Ultimately, our results demonstrate the need for more multimodal studies in politeness research.


Author(s):  
S Leinster-Evans ◽  
J Newell ◽  
S Luck

This paper looks to expand on the INEC 2016 paper ‘The future role of virtual reality within warship support solutions for the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers’ presented by Ross Basketter, Craig Birchmore and Abbi Fisher from BAE Systems in May 2016 and the EAAW VII paper ‘Testing the boundaries of virtual reality within ship support’ presented by John Newell from BAE Systems and Simon Luck from BMT DSL in June 2017. BAE Systems and BMT have developed a 3D walkthrough training system that supports the teams working closely with the QEC Aircraft Carriers in Portsmouth and this work was presented at EAAW VII. Since then this work has been extended to demonstrate the art of the possible on Type 26. This latter piece of work is designed to explore the role of 3D immersive environments in the development and fielding of support and training solutions, across the range of support disciplines. The combined team are looking at how this digital thread leads from design of platforms, both surface and subsurface, through build into in-service support and training. This rich data and ways in which it could be used in the whole lifecycle of the ship, from design and development (used for spatial acceptance, HazID, etc) all the way through to operational support and maintenance (in conjunction with big data coming off from the ship coupled with digital tech docs for maintenance procedures) using constantly developing technologies such as 3D, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality, will be proposed.  The drive towards gamification in the training environment to keep younger recruits interested and shortening course lengths will be explored. The paper develops the options and looks to how this technology can be used and where the value proposition lies. 


Author(s):  
Robin Horst ◽  
Ramtin Naraghi-Taghi-Off ◽  
Linda Rau ◽  
Ralf Dörner

AbstractEvery Virtual Reality (VR) experience has to end at some point. While there already exist concepts to design transitions for users to enter a virtual world, their return from the physical world should be considered, as well, as it is a part of the overall VR experience. We call the latter outro-transitions. In contrast to offboarding of VR experiences, that takes place after taking off VR hardware (e.g., HMDs), outro-transitions are still part of the immersive experience. Such transitions occur more frequently when VR is experienced periodically and for only short times. One example where transition techniques are necessary is in an auditorium where the audience has individual VR headsets available, for example, in a presentation using PowerPoint slides together with brief VR experiences sprinkled between the slides. The audience must put on and take off HMDs frequently every time they switch from common presentation media to VR and back. In a such a one-to-many VR scenario, it is challenging for presenters to explore the process of multiple people coming back from the virtual to the physical world at once. Direct communication may be constrained while VR users are wearing an HMD. Presenters need a tool to indicate them to stop the VR session and switch back to the slide presentation. Virtual visual cues can help presenters or other external entities (e.g., automated/scripted events) to request VR users to end a VR session. Such transitions become part of the overall experience of the audience and thus must be considered. This paper explores visual cues as outro-transitions from a virtual world back to the physical world and their utility to enable presenters to request VR users to end a VR session. We propose and investigate eight transition techniques. We focus on their usage in short consecutive VR experiences and include both established and novel techniques. The transition techniques are evaluated within a user study to draw conclusions on the effects of outro-transitions on the overall experience and presence of participants. We also take into account how long an outro-transition may take and how comfortable our participants perceived the proposed techniques. The study points out that they preferred non-interactive outro-transitions over interactive ones, except for a transition that allowed VR users to communicate with presenters. Furthermore, we explore the presenter-VR user relation within a presentation scenario that uses short VR experiences. The study indicates involving presenters that can stop a VR session was not only negligible but preferred by our participants.


Author(s):  
Bernardo Breve ◽  
Stefano Cirillo ◽  
Mariano Cuofano ◽  
Domenico Desiato

AbstractGestural expressiveness plays a fundamental role in the interaction with people, environments, animals, things, and so on. Thus, several emerging application domains would exploit the interpretation of movements to support their critical designing processes. To this end, new forms to express the people’s perceptions could help their interpretation, like in the case of music. In this paper, we investigate the user’s perception associated with the interpretation of sounds by highlighting how sounds can be exploited for helping users in adapting to a specific environment. We present a novel algorithm for mapping human movements into MIDI music. The algorithm has been implemented in a system that integrates a module for real-time tracking of movements through a sample based synthesizer using different types of filters to modulate frequencies. The system has been evaluated through a user study, in which several users have participated in a room experience, yielding significant results about their perceptions with respect to the environment they were immersed.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 2193
Author(s):  
Juan Luis Higuera-Trujillo ◽  
Carmen Llinares ◽  
Eduardo Macagno

Humans respond cognitively and emotionally to the built environment. The modern possibility of recording the neural activity of subjects during exposure to environmental situations, using neuroscientific techniques and virtual reality, provides a promising framework for future design and studies of the built environment. The discipline derived is termed “neuroarchitecture”. Given neuroarchitecture’s transdisciplinary nature, it progresses needs to be reviewed in a contextualised way, together with its precursor approaches. The present article presents a scoping review, which maps out the broad areas on which the new discipline is based. The limitations, controversies, benefits, impact on the professional sectors involved, and potential of neuroarchitecture and its precursors’ approaches are critically addressed.


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