Enriching social situational awareness in remote interactions

Abstract

In this paper we present a new perspective into developing technologies for enriching social presence among remote interaction partners. Inspired by the abilities and limitations faced by people who are disabled during their everyday social interactions, we propose novel portable and wearable technologies that could potentially enrich remote interactions even in audio and video deprived settings. We describe the important challenges faced by people who are disabled during everyday dyadic and group social interactions and correlate them to the challenges faced by participants in remote interactions. With a case study of visually impaired individuals, we demonstrate how assistive technologies developed for social assistance of people who are disabled can help in increasing the social situational awareness, and hence social presence, of remote interaction partners.