Is social presence (alone) a general predictor for good remote collaboration? comparing video and augmented reality guidance in maintenance procedures

Abstract

A common practice in scenarios of remote collaboration is to provide a representation from distributed team members, aiming to positively influence the level of social presence and in turn the work effort. Nevertheless, these stimuli can lead to fractured learning experiences, since collaborators need to split attention among the task, the shared information, and the counterpart representation. This paper explored how the last affects social presence, and other dimensions of collaboration, as well as task resolution in scenarios of remote guidance. A user study was conducted, comparing two distinct conditions: traditional video chat (team members representation always visible) and Augmented Reality (AR) annotations (collaborators representation never available). These were selected due to ongoing research with partners from the industry sector, following the insights of a participatory design process. A real-life use-case was considered, i.e., synchronous maintenance task with 4 completion stages that required a remote expert using a computer to guide 37 on-site participants wielding a handheld device. The results of the study are described and discussed based on data analysis, showing that the majority of participants preferred the AR-based condition, despite the absence of the expert representation.

ATI-driven SAR Remote Collaboration Platform for Manufacturing in a Training Task

“…This may be especially important for collaborative tasks that require guiding or assisting a local user in real time. Recently, Marques' research [3,4,7,8,28,40,53] has con rmed this. Additionally, the SAR-based interface is a versatile and convenient option for on-site users [10][11][12] which has several advantages over other types of interfaces(e.g., HMD, mobile phones, and tablets), such as being hands-free, not requiring the user to wear an HMD, and allowing the user to interact more naturally and intuitively.…”

“…After nishing the experiment, we asked all participants to rank two interfaces that they had experienced from worst to best based on a preference questionnaire according to Marques et al [7]. And we focus on seven items, such as, R1 helpful, R2 engaging, R3 novel, R4 familiar, R5 easy-to-use, R6 exible, R7, customizable.…”

“…The travel cost and time, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the desire to reduce carbon emissions made remote collaborative work increasingly acceptable, if not essential [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Speci cally, these factors distinctly promoted the popularity of remote collaborative activities, as is the case of training, emergency response, and medical and industrial domains [7,8]. Although video-conferencing has prospered, Augmented Reality (AR) technology provides lots of opportunities lie ahead for more advanced strategies for remote collaboration platforms in training/ procedural tasks and remote assistance [1,3,[9][10][11][12].…”

Telepresence in the Recent Literature with a Focus on Robotic Platforms, Applications and Challenges

“…Such cues involve eye contact, facial expression, eye gaze, orientation and touch, for example [23]. Social presence has also been considered in the field of remote collaboration, where on-site and remote team members from different backgrounds collaborate in specific activities [24]. It was argued in [24] that social presence alone cannot indicate whether remote collaboration is good or bad, as some aspects of collaboration can be achieved without all collaborators seeing each other at all times.…”

Methodology for Rationalization of Pre-Production Processes Using Virtual Reality Based Manufacturing Instructions

“…With the combination of a head-mounted display and augmented reality, instructors can dynamically place the display and annotations on the physical environment in the worker's field of view during maintenance and repair, thereby instructing workers from anywhere [25]. However, research comparing a video call with an expert to an augmented reality tutorial showed that most interviewees preferred the AR tutorial to a video call with a trainer [26]. The development of augmented reality tutorials is currently quite a lengthy and challenging process [27,28].…”