Immersive Virtual Reality

Jeremy BailensonDepartment of Communication

Stanford University

Virtual Human Interaction Labhttp://vhil.stanford.edu

Virtual Reality as a Communication Medium

• Define VR, discuss central concepts

• Do people treat virtual people like real people:Use personal space as metric

• Virtual reality application: Person Recognition

Structure of Research

HardwareEngineering

ComputerGraphics

User PsychologyExperiments

Collaborators

Stanford Undergraduates

Megan MillerAndrew OrinNicole LundbladJulia HuClaire CarlsonAaron SullivanBoyko KakaradovHassan AdubuJosh AinslieAdriean De La MoraJon ShihJaireh TecarroSam WarburgKathryn RickertsenJerry Yu

Stanford Graduate Students/Post Docs

Nick Yee

Kayur PatelRobby RatanHunter Gehlbach

Stanford Faculty

Shanto IyengarCliff Nass

UCSB Faculty/Post Docs

Andy BeallJim BlascovichJack Loomis Matthew Turk

Rosanna Guadagno

What is VR in Popular Culture?

What is VR in Popular Culture?

VR in the Real World

• Expensive

• Rare

• Clunky

• Poor Fidelity

but…

• Getting Better!

What is VR?

•William Gibson:

‘consensual hallucination’

•Jaron Lanier:

‘new post-symbolic paradigm which circumvents representation with a direct experience’

Digital Immersive Virtual Environment Technology

Technical Specifications

Optical tracking for translation (x,y,z)Accelerometer for rotation (pitch, yaw, roll)Microphone tracks mouth movements (open, closed)

Head Mounted Display (1280X1024 in each eye, 60 degrees diagonal Field of View)

WorldVizWorldViz• Immersive virtual reality turnkey system solutions

• Specialized on universities & researchers Products

Vizard 2.17 software for creating real-time interactivity in 3D worlds

PPT 1.2 optical precision position tracker

www.worldviz.com

Technical Specifications

Defining VR: Virtual Human Avatar

Defining VR: Virtual Human Representation

Defining VR: Virtual Human Representation

Defining VR: Tracking and Rendering

Immersive Virtual Environment Apparatus (HMD)

Proxemics

• Studied extensively in the social sciences since 1950’s

• Do proxemic patterns hold true with virtual humans? (copresence, social presence)

Sample Proxemics Task(Old technology…1999!)

Sample Data

Mutual Gaze Study: Task

Mutual Gaze Study:

Conditions

CONTROL CYLINDER

COND 1 EYES CLOSED

COND 2 EYES OPEN

COND 3 BLINKING

COND 4

BLINKS And

HEAD TURNS

COND 5

BLINKS, HEAD TURNS,

And PUPIL

DILATION

Mutual Gaze Study: Results

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

Virtual Human Control Pylon

Met

ers

Minimum Distance (Virtual Human vs. Control Condition)

Mutual Gaze Study: Results

Virtual Human Representation Study

Independent Variables:

– Gaze (eyes closed vs. mutual gaze)

– ‘Soul’ (Agent/Avatar)

Agents

Avatars

Virtual Human Representation: Results

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Agent Avatar

Eyes ClosedMutual Gaze

Met

ers

Minimum Distance

Approaching Virtual Human Study

Virtual Human Approach Results

Min

imu

m D

ista

nce

(C

M)

.7

.6

.5

.4

.3

.2

.1

0.0

Stranger

Tutor

Virtual Human Status/Politeness Effects

Application:Virtual Reality and Police Lineups

Application:Virtual Reality and Police Lineups

Who Stole the Wallet? Who is the suspect?

Currently in US, 90 percent of lineups are fromPhotographs taken at a single angle

(not like the television shows)

Application:Virtual Reality and Police Lineups

Thank you!

Virtual Human Interaction Lab

http://vhil.stanford.edu