Bernhard Maurer

EyeCo: Effects of Shared Gaze on Social Presence in an Online Cooperative Game

This paper investigates the effects of a shared gaze approach on social presence in an online cooperative game. We explored how a shared gaze visualization changes how players work together and form collaborative strategies based on different combinations of gaze interaction and verbal communication. Our study findings highlight the positive influence of a shared gaze visualization on team cohesion and involvement towards increased perceived social presence among cooperating team members. With our findings we want to inform game designers with insights on the inclusion of gaze-based interaction in remote gaming settings and whether this can strengthen the social bond between players. Our approach aims at fostering social couplings in remote collaborative gaming and investigates their potential to increase the connectedness between players.

Four Eyes See More Than Two: Shared Gaze in the Car

Purposeful collaboration of driver and front-seat passenger can help in demanding driving situations and therefore increase safety. The characteristics of the car, as a context, limit the collaboration possibilities of the driver and front-seat passenger, though. In this paper, we present an approach that supports successful collaboration of the driver and front-seat passenger with regard to the contextual specifics. By capturing the front-seat passenger’s gaze and visualizing it for the driver, we create a collaborative space for information sharing in the car. We present the results from a study investigating the potentials of the co-driver’s gaze as means to support the driver during a navigational task. Our results confirm that the co-driver’s gaze can serve as helpful means to support the collaboration of driver and front-seat passenger in terms of perceived distraction and workload of the driver.

Shared Gaze in the Car: Towards a Better Driver-Passenger Collaboration

Many automotive tasks can potentially be seen as a collaborative activity between driver and front seat passenger. Nevertheless, the position of both passengers sitting in the front seat hinders a natural face to face communication. An assisting co-driver can thus lead to more distraction and misunderstanding because pointing out things becomes diffficult. We want to add a natural way of communication and present a prototype that captures the co-drivers gaze and visualizes it for the driver. With this setup we try to create a possibility for passengers to collaborate and share information e.g., during navigational tasks or to provide hints about upcoming hazards. We developed a prototype in a car simulator to explore the concept in a first explorative study setup. In this paper we describe our concept of using shared gaze in the car, the technical setup of the prototype as well as possible application scenarios and future studies.

Dad, Stop Crashing My Car!: Making Use of Probing to Inspire the Design of Future In-Car Interfaces

In order to envision novel in-car user interfaces, it is important to investigate driver and passenger behavior as well as to identify relevant context factors that influence this behavior. Automotive user interfaces are often concentrated on drivers and their needs, whereas passengers and their needs are paid little attention to. In this paper we report on a probing study, which aimed at revealing novel design ideas for interfaces for both, car drivers and passengers. The overall goal of the study was to get inspired by actual driver and passenger behavior. In particular, we investigated past behaviors and what we can learn from these episodes for automotive interface design. We illustrate the user-centered process of generating innovative design concepts for the automotive domain based on the results of the probing study. Additionally, we introduce three resulting design concepts by means of design sketches and textual descriptions to provide insights on the concrete results of our efforts. We discuss probing as a method to generate novel design ideas for the automotive UI community and reflect on the three emerged design concepts which focus on collaboration, behavior change, and entertainment in the car.

An Eye for an Eye: Gaze Input in Competitive Online Games and its Effects on Social Presence

This paper investigates the effects of a shared gaze visualization regarding social presence in an online competitive game setting. We investigate if the incorporation of gaze interaction among different competitive game genres would influence the perceived social presence for the players. To find answers to our research question we created an experimental setting that is based on two game genres that require strategic skills (i.e., a turn-based strategy game) and motoric skills (i.e., a real-time first person shooter). Our study findings highlight the positive influence of a shared gaze visualization on competitive play. Further, the studied game genres have a significant influence on the perceived social presence. With our findings we want to provide insights for game designers and researchers regarding the inclusion of gaze-based interaction in remote gaming settings.

TorqueScreen: Actuated Flywheels for Ungrounded Kinaesthetic Feedback in Handheld Devices

Handheld touch screen based devices, such as smartphones or tablets, typically provide limited haptic feedback. On cur- rent devices, what is visually perceived and what is tactile and kinesthetically felt is semantically uncoupled. In order to improve embodied interaction on handheld screen based devices, new ways to provide richer haptic feedback are re- quired. In this paper, we present TorqueScreen, a prototypi- cal system combining a handheld touch screen device (i.e., a tablet) with an actuated flywheel capable of imposing angular momentum onto the tablet. The TorqueScreen design allows interlinking the movement and physics of virtual objects on the screen with the torque as haptic output imposed on the tablet. We describe the design and implementation of the de- vice, illustrate the resulting design space, and discuss future improvements and potential applications.

Where the eyes meet: Lessons learned from shared gaze-based interactions in cooperative and competitive online games

Abstract This article reflects on the effects of shared gaze visualizations on perceived social presence and non-verbal communication in online gameplay. We report on two case studies that employed shared gaze-based interaction in cooperative and competitive settings. These two case studies explored how players appropriate and utilize various gaze communication behaviors. In Study 1 we explored how a shared gaze visualization changes social behavior among players and collaborative strategies based on different combinations of gaze interaction and verbal communication. Study 2 followed a similar shared gaze approach but investigated its usage in different competitive game genres. Our study findings highlight the positive impact of shared gaze on collaboration and perceived social presence among players in both cooperative and competitive settings. This article presents a reanalysis and synthesis of the study findings, with the aim to identify differences and commonalities between cooperative and competitive use of shared gaze in games. To provide insights for designers and researchers, we discuss lessons learned of incorporating shared gaze visualizations in multiplayer games and illustrate related design potentials and pitfalls.

Eye Contact: Gaze as a Connector Between Spectators and Players in Online Games

This paper proposes an experimental setting that investigates shared gaze integrations (constant gaze and eye contact) in games and their effects on the social presence perceived by different roles (players and spectators) in a remote scenario. In order to get insights, we conducted a study that is made up of 4 different conditions (2 roles and 2 gaze integrations). Results show, depending on the type of the gaze integration and the role, positive effects of gaze towards an increased awareness and engagement among participants. Through the inclusion of shared gaze information, a new nonverbal communication channel for players and spectators is created that presents an interesting design resource for future approaches of digital play. Designers should receive information on how to design gaze-based interfaces that do not distract players during play, and also give spectators the possibility to experience a game via the player’s eyes.

Utilizing a Digital Game as a Mediatory Artifact for Social Persuasion to Prevent Speeding

In this paper we present a game-based approach to stop a driver from speeding by means of social persuasion. The approach utilizes a digital game played by a passenger inside the car. The game serves as a mediatory artifact, which translates the speed of the car into in-game events, thus, nudging the passenger to communicate with the driver about his/her driving behavior. As a game we used Tetris, which was coupled to the speed of a virtual vehicle in our driving simulator. We designed four different in-game representations of the real car data and examined, which of these designs is most suitable to trigger an intuitive, understandable linkage between the speeding behavior and the corresponding in-game events in order to enable a prompt intervention of the passenger. We evaluated the four designs in an exploratory user study. Our findings highlight the feasibility of our approach, as even passengers, who were rather uninvolved in the driving task, were successfully encouraged to slow down the driver. Based on our study results, we recommend a hybrid design strategy for the game, between designing for a dynamically increasing in-game challenge to foster passenger engagement based on fun, and simultaneously intervening dynamically in the playability of the game to foster communication with the driver to pave the way for social persuasion in the car.

Improving rehabilitation process after total knee replacement surgery through visual feedback and enhanced communication in a serious game

A common problem during rehabilitation after total knee replacement surgery is a lack of intrinsic motivation to do the necessary exercises at home. Doing the exercises at home without the supervision of a physical therapist raises the risk that patients do not execute the activities in a safe and effective manner. To address this problem, we developed a serious exergame to improve engagement and the efficiency of the rehabilitation process. A team of game developers, physiotherapists and a researcher collaborated to contribute to the design and prototype development. This led to a prototype using Microsoft Kinect as an input device to engage users combined with an individualized setup that provides visual rewarding and corrective feedback to the patient and a communication channel to the therapist to enable performance monitoring. This interdisciplinary process we were engaged in has implications for the development of engaging exergames that communicate clinically relevant performance information to elderly patients through a visual feedback tool.