Bailenson, Jeremy. Transformed Social Interaction in Virtual Reality. 19 October 2009
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Transformed Social Interaction in Virtual Reality
Jeremy Bailenson
Dept of Comm
Stanford Univ
Contents |
Digital identities in the Home and in Online Communities (Avatars)
Expansive notion of digital identity / avatar:
- JPEG photo
- Voice recording, represented by wave graphic
- Social networking service profile
- Facial recognition map
Digital Immersive Virtual Environment Technology
Feedback, sensing:
- Head Tracking device
- Rendering computer
- Update A/V display
- Repeat
Generating a good facial map:
- 3D Me Now
Facial expression tracking:
- 22 dot facial map
Collaborative virtual environment:
- Shared models, textures are stored locally
- Network is used for sharing movement, position data
Transformed Social Interaction (TSI)
Transformed Social Interaction (TSI) Overview
- Actual behavior
- Strategic filter
- Software filter?
- Transformed behavior
Categories of transformation (TSI)
- Self representation
- Social-sensory abilities
- Social context
Augmented Gaze
- Transgress boundaries of conventional physical interaction
- Give full eye contact to multiple listeners
Digital Chameleon
- Reflect strategy
- Mirror or imitate the listener
- Computational: translate movement, position data
Simple implementation:
- Listener mimics speaker exactly at 4 sec lag
- "2 lines of code"
- Negotiation test using handshake machine
- Reflexive handshake, shake your own hand
- Did not work for females
- Zero detection of mirroring
Facial Ientity Capture
Presidential election
- National random sample (N=200)
- 3 Groups
- No morph
- Bush morph, Kerry unmodified
- Kerry morph, Bush unmodified
- Candidate facial blend (60/40 ratio)
- Significant effect on voter preference
- Voters likely to prefer candidate with whom they are blended
Transforming social perception
Limitation of single speaker in a classroom
- People in corners of rooms are ignored a 3rd of the time
Experiment:
- Folks being ignored turn transparent
- Result: teacher keeps them in the mix
- Assume better learning, more engaged students
Transformed Proximity
Classroom:
- Is there a "sweet spot" in the classroom?
- Center, front
- Students in sweet spot have significant improvement
- Relationship toward the motivations for selecting a particular seat?
Experiment:
- Everyone experiences the room as though they are in the "sweet spot" alone
Stranger in the virtual mirror
- Subject confronts a "reflected" image in the mirror
- This image changes some fundamental identity category
- e.g. White male becomes female POC
- Subject interacts with confederate
- Studies ran on attractiveness, race, height, age
Note: confidence established in VW lingers for at least 1 hour.
Veja Du: feels like I've never been here before
- Craft a model of S
- Animate model performing actions that the S has never done
- S watches, influences avatar in 3rd person
False memory formation
- Craft animations of children swimming with whales
Q&A
What about closeness of VW representation to RW?
- Photorealism helpful when it matters
- Behavioral realism more important
Agent v Avatar?
- Broken distinction
Media literacy, will effects decrease as novelty wears off?
- "Hope so" because some results are alarming
- Promising: mimicry detectors believe it to be mockery!
Will avatar-mediated activities be widespread in the future?
- Popularity of gaming, SNS suggests: yes.
Abuse in political campaign:
- Craft a morph for every citizen in FL, OH, NH, etc.
- Mathematically possible
- Ethically odious
Where do you get ideas for research?
- Mentioned Neuromancer in first paragraph of NSF proposal
- Science Fiction provides inspiration
Future research:
- Confronting carbon footprint w/in VW
- A life of Charmin is killing trees in a virgin forest
- Games for change
