The effects of body direction and posture on taking the perspective of a humanoid avatar in a virtual environment

Visual perspective taking is inferring how the world looks to another person. To clarify this process, we investigated whether employing a humanoid avatar as the viewpoint would facilitate an imagined perspective shift in a virtual environment, and which factor of the avatar is effective for the facilitation effect. We used a task that involved reporting how an object looks by a simple direction judgment, either from the avatar’s position or from the position of an empty chair. We found that the humanoid avatar’s presence improved task performance. Furthermore, the avatar’s facilitation effect was observed only when the avatar was facing the visual stimulus to be judged; performance was worse when it faced backwards than when there was only an empty chair facing forwards. This suggests that the avatar does not simply attract spatial attention, but the posture of the avatar is crucial for the facilitation effect. In addition, when the directions of the head and the torso were opposite (i.e., an impossible posture), the avatar’s facilitation effect disappeared. Thus, visual perspective taking might not be facilitated by the avatar when its posture is biomechanically impossible because we cannot embody it. Finally, even when the avatar’s head of the possible posture was covered with a bucket, the facilitation effect was found with the forward-facing avatar rather than the backward-facing avatar. That is, the head/gaze direction cue, or presumably the belief that the visual stimulus to be judged can be seen by the avatar, was not required. These results suggest that explicit perspective taking is facilitated by embodiment towards humanoid avatars.

WACANA HUMOR PADA TAGAR #MATANAJWAMENANTITERAWAN DI TWITTER

Mata Najwa, a talk show hosted by Najwa Shihab, on September 29, 2020 uploaded unusual video which questioning the existence of Terawan Agus Putranto, The Minister of Health Republic Indonesia at that time, whom never appears in the media to make statement about Government’s treatment of pandemic Covid-19. Mata Najwa tried to attract public’s attention by uploading a video that using empty chair interview technique, pretends Terawan was shows up in the middle of the show. Until the video with hastag #MataNajwaMenantiTerawan became trending topic in Twitter and created new humor discourses from netizens. The humor discourses in this hashtag is interested to be researched, that makes the objective of this research is to discover humor discourses contained in the video #MataNajwaMenantiTerawan, as well as user’s tweets that created new humor discourses in Twitter. Concept framework of this research is concepts about satire, parody, parikena, dan sarcasm. Research method: constructivism paradigm with qualitative type of research. Data collection methods: observing video Mata Najwa duration 4 minutes 22 seconds, timeline on Twitter with hashtag #MataNajwaMenantiTerawan, interview with Executive Producer of Mata Najwa from Narasi TV and documentation from various sources.

Teknik kursi kosong: Terapi Gestalt untuk mengurangi perasaan marah remaja kepada ayah

Individu has problems in life. Inability of the individual to express their feelings can be unfinished business problems. In this case subject have an anger on the father that cause a bad interaction with him and juvenile delinquency. Assessment methods were observation, interview, Clinical Anger Scale, Draw a Person, Baum, House Tree Person and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. It can be said that the subject can not express the feeling to the father, so it becomes an unfinished business. The intervention used in this case was Gestalt Therapy with Empty Chair technique. This therapy was able to facilitate the subject in revealing unfinished business related problem with the father. The results of the intervention showed that the level of anger of the subject decreases.

At Work with Practice Theory, ‘Failed’ Fieldwork, or How to See International Politics in An Empty Chair

IR practice theorists advocate studying international relations through its manifold practices. On the question of methodology, they thus promote a simple slogan: start with practices! But how do we first capture an international practice? Surprisingly, this crucial question often remains abstract or hidden in methodological metaphors like ‘leaving the armchair’. Reflecting on a supposedly failed fieldwork experiment, I introduce two heuristics in this article on how to make this hidden work transparent. In particular, I argue that capturing practice happens through abductive movements between site, scrap, screen, and seminar work that is similarly enabled and constrained by practical, epistemic, professional, and political positionalities. Using this vocabulary will advance IR practice research in three ways: first, pedagogically, in transferring a more accurate impression of what the approach entails; second, normatively, in accounting for where our arguments come from; and third, epistemically, to avoid only seeing what we were looking for.

Modern Teachers of Ars moriendi

It is evident that a change is happening, a breakthrough, in perceptions of death; the next episode is being unveiled. After the stages Philippe Aries named death of the tame and then death of the wild, people today are finally experiencing the humanizing of death, which we call sharing death, whose influence is worth deep analysis. Our hypothesis is that today, Ars moriendi, meeting the needs of the dying, may be learned from the so-called death teachers, whose message is growing noticeably in society. This research shows a certain reversal of social roles that are worth noting and accepting. In the past, a priest was a guide and a teacher in the face of dying and death; today, he has the opportunity to learn Ars moriendi from contemporary teachers of dying, to imagine an empty chair standing by a dying person.

Studi Kepustakaan Penerapan Terapi Kursi Kosong (Empty Chair) dalam Terapi Gestalt

The purpose of this study is to describe the empty chair technique in gestalt therapy regarding: 1) the successful application of the empty chair technique, 2) the goal and setting of the empty chair technique, 3) the procedure and duration of empty chair technique therapy, 4) suggestions and recommendations about the empty chair technique. The research method of applying the empty chair technique in gestalt therapy was library research. The 14 journals would be grouped and summarized into a table into 4 focus discussions. The main focus in Gestalt counseling is to help individuals through their transition from a state that is always assisted by the environment to a state of self-sufficiency (self-support).

The effects of body direction and posture on taking the perspective of a humanoid avatar in a virtual environment

Visual perspective taking is inferring how the world looks to another person. To clarify this process, we investigated whether employing a humanoid avatar as the viewpoint would facilitate an imagined perspective shift in a virtual environment. We used a task that involved reporting how an object looks by a simple direction judgment either from the avatar’s position or an empty chair’s position. We found that the humanoid avatar’s presence improved task performance. Furthermore, the avatar’s facilitation effect was observed only when the avatar was facing the visual stimulus to be judged; performance was worse when it faced backwards than when there was only an empty chair faced forwards. When the directions of the head and the torso were opposite (i.e., an impossible posture), the avatar’s facilitation effect disappeared. The performance was better in the order of the condition that both the head and the torso were facing forward, the condition that both the head and the torso were facing backward, the condition that the torso was facing toward the stimulus while the head was facing away, and the condition that the head was facing toward the stimulus while the torso was facing away. Thus, visual perspective taking might not be facilitated by the avatar when its posture is biomechanically impossible. These results suggest that the facilitation effect is based not only on attention capture but also on visual perspective taking of humanoid avatar.