Hi, I'm Ann, and today I'm presenting
Proxemics for Human-Agent Interaction in Augmented Reality.
This is work done with Pascal Knierim,
Francesco Chiossi, Lewis Chuang, and Robin Welsch.
This project revolves around a central question, which is,
does a virtual agent occupy space in an augmented reality (or AR) environment?
We're interested in this question because we know that augmented reality overlays
virtual content in the physical space. But not much is known about whether
virtual objects, particularly a virtual human-like avatar, has a personal space,
and how might this impact the user's behavior in terms of social interaction?
Now, proxemics research is a study of how people utilize space.
It suggests that people often maintain
a personal space, which is a circular region with a radius
of 1 meter that serves as an invisible buffer from one another.
Additionally,
four zones have been quantified based on an individual's preference
for interpersonal distances, which include intimate distance,
personal distance, social distance, and public distance.
These metrics have been operationalised
in HCI research to create, for instance, ubiquitous computing systems with context
awareness such that they allow for comfortable interaction with the users.
Now, how about for AR,
where the realism of virtual agents might still be perceived differently as they
stand in contrast to a physical environment?
In our study, we ask whether people would respect the personal space of a virtual
agent in AR as if they would keep a distance with strangers in real life.
Furthermore, whether violation of personal
space would lead to discomfort as evident in the user's physiology.
Our findings implicate how comfortable social AR interaction can be realized.
To answer our questions,
we conducted a within-subjects study to explore how individuals interact
with six virtual agents in an art gallery context.
"Hello" (user speaking) "Hello there.
Please go to the artwork on the right.
Please rate the artwork." (Avatar speaking)
There are two blocks with slightly different tasks in the experiment: approach
the virtual agents in the first block and walking through them in the second.
In both blocks, participants would start from an initial distance of 2.5 meters.
These are some schematics for illustration purposes.
The primary variable of interest was
the user's proxemic pattern divided into two indicators: distance when the user
approaches and greets standing in front of the virtual agent,
or "preferred interpersonal distance", or "IPD" for short, and the spatial distance
when the user walks past the agent to view the art exhibit.
Participants' physiological responses were also measured to evaluate the degree
of perceived comfort when walking through the virtual agent.
First, our results showed that most people,
31 out of 42 people kept a personal distance with the virtual agents
and eleven people kept a social distance with the virtual agents.
No one kept a public nor intimate distance with the virtual agents.
Secondly, human-like agents produced smaller IPD when participants approached them
to start a conversation as compared to the pillar.
This is shown by the figure on the left.
Here you can see the mean preferred IPD in meters for each virtual agent.
We also found gender differences that IPD was enlarged when approaching the male agents
as compared to female agents, shown here on the right figure.
This replicates effects are typically found in human-human social interaction.
Lastly, participants also showed elevated
skin conductance responses for some agents.
The figure on the left shows the maximum
amplitude for all virtual agents as a function of block.
The right shows an example of one participant's skin conductance response
(indicated by the orange line) when walking through the agent as compared to passing
around the agent on the side (indicated by the blue line).
Taken together, our study shows that virtual agent occupies a personal space.
Human like agents invited a closer IPD compared to the pillar where male agents
produce a larger IPD as compared to the female.
We also saw elevated skin conductance
responses when the agent's space was violated.
Our work has clear implications in terms
of designing for a comfortable social AR experience.
First, the personal space around the virtual agents can be explained
by the presence of their social features and the perceived gender.
Some people may hold a stronger perception
towards these virtual agents in terms of their size or appearances as seen
in the distances they kept during interaction.
Therefore, it is worth for future research to consider how these characteristics
would influence how users decide to interact with the virtual agents.
Second, conflicts with the virtual agents can negatively impact social interaction.
For example, in an enclosed physical
space, the presence of an agent in AR could introduce discomfort in users
because the agents might be standing too close to the users.
Similarly, for designing a pervasive AR
interface which aims to be aware and responsive to the user's context such
that it allows continuous access to information.
So having technology like the Microsoft Mesh or Holoportation
for remote collaboration, privacy could become a concern on this continuum.
Therefore, respect for others' personal
space becomes important when users attempt to teleport into each other's space.
Lastly, our work envisions the incorporation of proxemics-aware
and physiological computing systems that could support comfortable social
interaction with virtual agents in, for example, the Metaverse.
The takeaway here is that social AR
experience with avatars must be designed with proxemics in mind.
Thank you.