Exploring behaviour towards avatars and agents in immersive virtual environments with mixed-agency interactions | TU Wien

Information

Publication Type: Invited Talk
Workgroup(s)/Project(s): not specified
Date: 2021
Event: IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Conference date: 27. March 2021 – 1. April 2021
Keywords: Collaborative Virtual Reality, Avatars, Virtual Agents

Abstract

Immersive virtual environments (IVEs) in which multiple users nav- igate by walking and interact with each other in natural ways are perfectly suited for team applications from training to recreation. At the same time, they can solve scheduling conflicts by employing virtual agents in place of missing team members or additional par- ticipants of a scenario. While this idea has been long discussed in IVEs research there are no prior publications on social interactions in systems with multiple embodied users and agents. This paper presents an experiment at a work-in-progress stage that addresses the impact of perceived agency and control of a virtual character in a collaborative scenario with two embodied users and one virtual agent. Our future study will investigate whether users treat avatars and agents differently within a mixed-agency scenario, analysing several behavioural metrics and self-report of participants

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BibTeX

@talk{Podkosova_2021,
  title =      "Exploring behaviour towards avatars and agents in immersive
               virtual environments with mixed-agency interactions",
  author =     "Iana Podkosova and Katja Zibrek and Julien Pettre and
               Ludovic Hoyet and Anne-Helene Olivier",
  year =       "2021",
  abstract =   "Immersive virtual environments (IVEs) in which multiple
               users nav-  igate by walking and interact with each other in
               natural ways are  perfectly suited for team applications
               from training to recreation. At  the same time, they can
               solve scheduling conflicts by employing  virtual agents in
               place of missing team members or additional par-  ticipants
               of a scenario. While this idea has been long discussed in 
               IVEs research there are no prior publications on social
               interactions  in systems with multiple embodied users and
               agents. This paper  presents an experiment at a
               work-in-progress stage that addresses  the impact of
               perceived agency and control of a virtual character in  a
               collaborative scenario with two embodied users and one
               virtual  agent. Our future study will investigate whether
               users treat avatars  and agents differently within a
               mixed-agency scenario, analysing  several behavioural
               metrics and self-report of participants",
  event =      "IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces
               Abstracts and Workshops",
  location =   "Lisbon, Portugal",
  keywords =   "Collaborative Virtual Reality, Avatars, Virtual Agents",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2021/Podkosova_2021/",
}