Let’s Face It: Influence of Facial Expressions on Social Presence in Collaborative Virtual Reality

Kimmel, Simon; Jung, Frederike; Matviienko, Andrii; Heuten, Wilko; Böll, Susanne

doi:10.1145/3544548.3580707

Cited by 13 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The second finding of this study demonstrates that heightened fidelity of NVCs solved onto VCs impacts participants' perceivance of VC realism, their empathy toward the VC, and overall degree of social presence during IVR experiences. This aligns with previous research emphasizing the significance of NVC fidelity 11,18–22,27 . However, our study uncovered comparatively lower levels of significance regarding the inclusion of NVCs in IVR experiences.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Nonetheless, our study's findings are consistent with research utilizing SVR applications that enable real‐time communication among remote users. These studies have successfully demonstrated the influence of gaze direction on user attention 26 and the integration of mouth and gaze for enhancing social presence 27 . Thus, developers should prioritize NVCs conveyed through the mouth and gaze during design and development of such applications.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Finally, the study by Kimmel et al 27 investigated four types of facial expressions – eye and mouth movements, their combination, and no expressions, in relation to two forms of explanations: verbal and graphical. The goal was to determine how these expressions impacted social presence, and a controlled VR experiment was conducted to achieve this.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notwithstanding, multitude and fidelity of NVCs is a developmental challenge and it is therefore particularly beneficial to establish whether users prioritize, notice more, and/or are affected more by certain NVCs over others. Finally, non‐scripted interpersonal interactions, 11,26,27 in virtual and real settings alike, bring forth the very concerning issue of uncontrollable variable implication, since each interaction is unique and even miniscule differentiations and/or the slightest individual mannerisms may define the interpersonal relationship to a profound degree, thus also defining the documented user experience.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Exploring the impact of non‐verbal cues on user experience in immersive virtual reality

Dzardanova,

Nikolakopoulou,

Kasapakis

et al. 2023

Computer Animation & Virtual

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Face‐to‐face communication relies extensively on non‐verbal cues (NVCs) which complement, or at times dominate, the communicative process as they convey emotions with intense salience, thus definitively affecting interpersonal communication. The capture, transference, and subsequent interpretation of NVCs becomes complicated in computer‐mediated communicative processes, particularly in shared virtual worlds, for which there is growing interest both in regard to NVCs technological integration and their affective impact. This paper presents a between‐groups experimental setup which is facilitated in immersive virtual reality (IVR), and examines NVCs effects on user experience, with special emphasis on degree of attention toward each NVC as an isolated controlled variable of a scripted performance by a virtual character (VC). This study aims to evaluate NVCs fidelity based on the capabilities of the motion‐capture technologies utilized to address cue integration developmental challenges and examines NVCs impact on users' perceived realism of the VC, their empathy toward him, and the degree of social presence experienced. To meet the objectives set the affective impact of low‐fidelity automated NVCs and high‐fidelity real‐time captured NVCs were compared. The findings of the evaluation suggest that although NVCs do impact user experience to an extent, their effects are notably more subtle compared to previous studies.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Exploring the impact of non‐verbal cues on user experience in immersive virtual reality

Dzardanova,

Nikolakopoulou,

Kasapakis

et al. 2023

Computer Animation & Virtual

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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The hidden influence: exploring presence in human-synthetic interactions through ghostbots

McStay

2024

Ethics Inf Technol

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Presence is a palpable sense of space, things and others that overlaps with matters of meaning, yet is not reducible to it: it is a dimension of things that hides in plain sight. This paper is motivated by observations that (1) presence is under-appreciated in questions of modern and nascent human-synthetic agent interaction, and (2) that presence matters because it affects and moves us. The paper’s goal is to articulate a multi-faceted understanding of presence, and why it matters, so the importance of presence may be readily understood by those who regulate media, digital and artificial intelligence (AI) industries. Novel forms of presence raise all sorts of questions of what it means to live with new forms of presences. Some of these are highly positive and others are resistant to simplistic moral diagnosis, a point explored through extended consideration of ‘thanatechnology’ and ‘ghostbots’. To clarify and foreground presence, this paper draws on continental philosophy and technologist ideas about presence to understand the significance and parameters of presence. It then puts these to work by considering a range of existing and emerging human-synthetic agent interactions, arguing that that presence is an underappreciated yet crucial factor in human-synthetic interactions, particularly involving AI and ghostbots. The paper concludes with points of focus for organisations charged with media, data protection and AI governance regarding facets of presence-based characteristics for emergent human-synthetic interaction. Foremost is consideration of open standards for a presence-based afterlife and suggestion of a temporal firewall, or a break of time before resurrection, to prevent harm to those who have recently lost someone.

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A randomised controlled test in virtual reality of the effects on paranoid thoughts of virtual humans’ facial animation and expression

Wei,

Freeman,

Harris

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used in the study and treatment of paranoia. This is based on the finding that people who mistakenly perceive hostile intent from other people also perceive similar threat from virtual characters. However, there has been no study of the programming characteristics of virtual characters that may influence their interpretation. We set out to investigate how the animation and expressions of virtual humans may affect paranoia. In a two-by-two factor, between-groups, randomized design, 122 individuals with elevated paranoia rated their perceptions of virtual humans, set in an eye-tracking enabled VR lift scenario, that varied in facial animation (static or animated) and expression (neutral or positive). Both facial animation (group difference = 102.328 [51.783, 152.872], p < 0.001, $${\eta }_{p}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}$$ η p 2 = 0.125) and positive expressions (group difference = 53.016 [0.054, 105.979], p = 0.049, $${\eta }_{p}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}$$ η p 2 = 0.033) led to less triggering of paranoid thoughts about the virtual humans. Facial animation (group difference = 2.442 [− 4.161, − 0.724], p = 0.006, $${\eta }_{p}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}$$ η p 2 = 0.063) but not positive expressions (group difference = 0.344 [− 1.429, 2.110], p = 0.681, $${\eta }_{p}^{2}\hspace{0.17em}$$ η p 2 = 0.001) significantly increased the likelihood of neutral thoughts about the characters. Our study shows that the detailed programming of virtual humans can impact the occurrence of paranoid thoughts in VR. The programming of virtual humans needs careful consideration depending on the purpose of their use.

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Let’s Face It: Influence of Facial Expressions on Social Presence in Collaborative Virtual Reality

Cited by 13 publications

References 53 publications

Exploring the impact of non‐verbal cues on user experience in immersive virtual reality

Exploring the impact of non‐verbal cues on user experience in immersive virtual reality

The hidden influence: exploring presence in human-synthetic interactions through ghostbots

A randomised controlled test in virtual reality of the effects on paranoid thoughts of virtual humans’ facial animation and expression

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