Oluwakemi Adewunmi Ademoye

Olfaction-enhanced multimedia: perspectives and challenges

Olfaction—or smell—is one of the last challenges which multimedia and multimodal applications have to conquer. Enhancing such applications with olfactory stimuli has the potential to create a more complex—and richer—user multimedia experience, by heightening the sense of reality and diversifying user interaction modalities. Nonetheless, olfaction-enhanced multimedia still remains a challenging research area. More recently, however, there have been initial signs of olfactory-enhanced applications in multimedia, with olfaction being used towards a variety of goals, including notification alerts, enhancing the sense of reality in immersive applications, and branding, to name but a few. However, as the goal of a multimedia application is to inform and/or entertain users, achieving quality olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications from the users’ perspective is vital to the success and continuity of these applications. Accordingly, in this paper we have focused on investigating the user perceived experience of olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications, with the aim of discovering the quality evaluation factors that are important from a user’s perspective of these applications, and consequently ensure the continued advancement and success of olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications.

Perceived Synchronization of Olfactory Multimedia

The concept of synchronization is of fundamental importance in multimedia systems and applications. The focus of this this paper is on olfaction-enhanced multimedia, which concerns itself with associating computer-generated smell with other media. However, the lingering nature of smell, as opposed to the transitory nature of other media objects that multimedia applications are accustomed to, such as video and audio, means that specific attention needs to be given when synchronizing other media content with olfactory data. Consequently, this paper presents the results of an experimental study carried out to explore and investigate the temporal boundaries within which olfactory-data output in an olfaction-enhanced multimedia application can be successfully synchronized with other media objects from an end-user perspective. Results show the presence of two main synchronization regions, and that olfaction ahead of audiovisual content is more tolerable than olfaction behind content.

Synchronization of Olfaction-Enhanced Multimedia

This paper presents the results of an experimental study carried out to explore, from an end user perspective, the temporal boundaries within which olfactory data can be used to enhance multimedia applications. Results show the presence of two main synchronization regions, and that olfaction ahead of audiovisual content is more tolerable than olfaction behind content.

Information recall task impact in olfaction-enhanced multimedia

Enhancing multimedia applications with olfactory sensations is one of the last challenges in the area. While there is evidence, both scientific and anecdotal, that olfactory cues help users in information recall tasks, there is a lack of work when the targeted information is one contained in a multimedia presentation, which is precisely the focus of this article. Accordingly, we present the results of two experimental studies. The first study measured the impact of olfactory media variation on the users ability to perceive, synthesize, and analyze the informational content of olfactory-enhanced multimedia videos; the second study measured the impact of information content, and an information recall task in respect of user perception of the relevance, sense of reality, and acceptability of the olfactory media content, as well as the overall enjoyment of the experience. Results show that the use of olfactory media content, both pleasant and unpleasant, in multimedia displays does not significantly impact on information assimilation in a negative way. Moreover, the addition of a performance task may enhance the users understanding of the correlation between the characteristic odor(s) and the scenario under consideration, as well as enable users to consciously learn the odors.

User perception of media content association in olfaction-enhanced multimedia

Olfaction is an exciting challenge facing multimedia applications. In this article we have investigated user perception of the association between olfactory media content and video media content in olfactory-enhanced multimedia. Results show that the association between scent and content has a significant impact on the user-perceived experience of olfactory-enhanced multimedia.

Olfaction-enhanced multimedia: Bad for information recall?

The experiment reported in this paper sought to discover the impact that enhancing multimedia applications with olfaction has on an information recall. In contrast to previously reported studies. our results showed that olfaction actually had a negative impact on information recall. We believe that this difference is due to the ambiental nature of olfaction in previous work, whereas in our study we used directed olfactory stimuli.

Audio Masking Effect on Inter-Component Skews in Olfaction-Enhanced Multimedia Presentations

Media-rich content plays a vital role in consumer applications today, as these applications try to find new and interesting ways to engage their users. Video, audio, and the more traditional forms of media content continue to dominate with respect to the use of media content to enhance the user experience. Tactile interactivity has also now become widely popular in modern computing applications, while our olfactory and gustatory senses continue to have a limited role. However, in recent times, there have been significant advancements regarding the use of olfactory media content (i.e., smell), and there are a variety of devices now available to enable its computer-controlled emission. This paper explores the impact of the audio stream on user perception of olfactory-enhanced video content in the presence of skews between the olfactory and video media. This research uses the results from two experimental studies of user-perceived quality of olfactory-enhanced multimedia, where audio was present and absent, respectively. Specifically, the paper shows that the user Quality of Experience (QoE) is generally higher in the absence of audio for nearly perfect synchronized olfactory-enhanced multimedia presentations (i.e., an olfactory media skew of between {−10,+10s}); however, for greater olfactory media skews (ranging between {−30s;−10s} and {+10s, +30s}) user QoE is higher when the audio stream is present. It can be concluded that the presence of the audio has the ability to mask larger synchronization skews between the other media components in olfaction-enhanced multimedia presentations.

Can Individual Code Reviews Improve Solo Programming on an Introductory Course

Abstract Peer code reviews have been successfully applied to the teaching of programming and can be applied to solo programming. Collaborative approaches are currently popular and have been successfully applied though social interaction and assessment issues limit their application. It is believed that a checklist based individual code review can provide a framework which allows students to proofread their code prior to submission, improving performance. Pilot and follow-up studies were conducted at Swansea Metropolitan University and although the results are inconclusive some important observations are made with regards to the use of this technique. Further study into the effects of individual code reviews on student performance is recommended.

Synchronisation of olfactory-enhanced multimedia: Perspectives from an empirical study

The concept of synchronisation is of fundamental importance in multimedia systems and applications. It relates to defining and maintaining the temporal relationships between two or more correlated media objects that are combined, processed and presented together to produce a multimedia system or application. The focus of the research presented in this paper is on olfactory enhanced multimedia, which concerns itself with associating computer generated smell with other media. However, the lingering nature of smell, as opposed to the transitory nature of other media objects that multimedia applications are accustomed to, such as video and audio, means that specific attention needs to be given when synchronising other media content with olfactory data. Results highlight the existence of two perceptual synchronisation regions for olfactory enhanced-multimedia applications. Moreover, olfaction ahead of audiovisual content was shown to be less noticeable than the inverse case, of olfaction behind audiovisual content.