Exploring Agent Physicality and Social Presence for Medical Team Training

Abstract

Mixed reality and 3D user interface technologies have increased the immersion, presence, and physicality of user interactions. These technologies can also increase the physicality of embodied conversational agents (ECAs) by making the ECAs occupy and interact with the physical space. We propose that increasing the physicality of an ECA can increase the ECA's social presence, that is, the feeling that the ECA is a real person. In this paper, we examine existing research and formalize the idea of ECA physicality. We also explored the relationship between physicality and social presence by conducting two user studies (n = 18 and n = 29). Both user studies took place in a medical team training context and involved virtual human ECAs as fellow team members. The first study's results suggested that increasing physicality increased social presence and elicited more realistic behavior. The second study's results suggested that individual dimensions of physicality affect social presence to different extents.

How Social Context Cues in Online Support-Seeking Influence Self-Disclosure in Support Provision

“…Extant research indicates that the degree of perceived social presence in mediated communication can be enhanced with the aid of communication techniques and strategies, such as the use of avatars, emoticons, portrait pictures, and first name IDs (Bente, Ruggenberg, Kramer, & Eschenburg, 2008;Chuah et al, 2013;Reeves & Nass, 1996). Users of online forums typically have the option of using profiles to present themselves (Hinduja & Patchin, 2008;Liu, 2008).…”

A Large-Scale Study of Surrogate Physicality and Gesturing on Human–Surrogate Interactions in a Public Space

“…Participants had a higher tendency to seek advice from the video or robotic human when making a choice with risk involved. In a medical training context, Chuah et al (2013) found that even partially increasing the physicality of virtual humans-here by adding a physical lower body (e.g., mannequin legs) to a display showing the virtual human's upper body-could increase the sense of social presence with the virtual human. In the aspect of tele-communication, Tanaka et al (2014) conducted an experiment using various communication media, including a virtual avatar and a robot, to check the effect of physicality on distant communication.…”

Maintaining and Enhancing Human-Surrogate Presence in Augmented Reality

“…al. also presented interactive VHs in a medical application [7]. They developed the VHs with a physical body (e.g., mannequin legs) and concluded that increasing the physicality of VHs could increase social presence.…”