The effects of virtual human's spatial and behavioral coherence with physical objects on social presence in AR

Abstract

In augmented reality, people can feel the illusion of virtual humans (VHs) integrated into a real (physical) space. However, affordances of the real world and virtual contents might conflict, for example, when the VHs and real objects "collide" by occupying the same space. This implausible conflict can cause a break in presence in real-virtual human interactions. In this paper, we address an effort to avoid this conflict by maintaining the VH's spatial and behavioral coherence with respect to the physical objects or events (e.g., natural occlusions and appropriate help-requesting behaviors to avoid implausible physical-virtual collisions). We present a human subject experiment examining the effects of the physical-virtual coherence on human perceptions, such as social/copresence and behaviors with the VH. The basic ideas, experimental design, and results supporting the benefit of the VH's spatial and behavioral coherence are presented and discussed.

Don’t Bother Me: How to Handle Content-Irrelevant Objects in Handheld Augmented Reality

“…the help from Internet of Things (IoTs) actuators, VOs now can affect physical space. Such physical-virtual interactions are known to have positive effects on users' perception of the VOs [16,19,20].…”

“…Not only that, but they also likely lead to incorrect mutual occlusion between ROs and VOs, causing depth distortion [18]. Moreover, ROs intruding the place occupied by VOs could lead to an issue known as physicality conflicts [16,24]. Some of these problems related to mutual occlusion can be resolved by applying advanced technologies [14,28].…”

“…Some of these problems related to mutual occlusion can be resolved by applying advanced technologies [14,28]. However, supporting occlusion does not solve all the issues, e.g., physicality conflicts cannot be resolved [16].…”

Deictic Gesture Retargeting for Telepresence Avatars in Dissimilar Object and User Arrangements

“…If the two spaces are different, this simple strategy may cause unnaturalness in the avatar's motion (e.g., environment penetration, sitting in the air, etc. ), which can degrade the immersiveness [Kim et al 2017]. Therefore, the avatar's placement and movement need to be modified to fit the target space in AR telepresence.…”

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“…Using these mediums provides new opportunities for human-agent interaction. For instance, Kim et al have shown that agent awareness of the physical and virtual environment in AR can have positive impacts on social presence and user behavior [52,54,55]. AR is anticipated to eventually become an even larger market than VR [3], and it can be an effective platform for IVAs.…”