Ralph Schroeder

Small-Group Behavior in a Virtual and Real Environment: A Comparative Study

This paper describes an experiment that compares behavior in small groups when its members carry out a task in a virtual environment (VE) and then continue the same task in a similar, real-world environment. The purpose of the experiment was not to examine task performance, but to compare various aspects of the social relations among the group members in the two environments. Ten groups of three people each, who had never met before, met first in a shared VE and carried out a task that required the identification and solution of puzzles that were presented on pieces of paper displayed around the walls of a room. The puzzle involved identifying that the same-numbered words across all the pieces of paper formed a riddle or saying. The group continued this task for fifteen minutes, and then stopped to answer a questionnaire. The group then reconvened in the real world and continued the same task. The experiment also required one of the group members to continually monitor a particular one of the others in order to examine whether social discomfort could be generated within a VE. In each group, there was one immersed person with a head-mounted display and head-tracking and two non-immersed people who experienced the environment on a workstation display. The results suggest that the immersed person tended to emerge as the leader in the virtual group, but not in the real meeting. Group accord tended to be higher in the real meeting than in the virtual meeting. Socially conditioned responses such as embarrassment could be generated in the virtual meeting, even though the individuals were presented to one another by very simple avatars. The study also found a positive relationship between presence of being in a place and copresencethe sense of being with the other people. Accord in the group increased with presence, the performance of the group, and the presence of women in the group. The study is seen as part of a much larger planned study, for which this experiment was used to begin to understand the issues involved in comparing real and virtual meetings.

The Effect of Behavioral Realism and Form Realism of Real-Time Avatar Faces on Verbal Disclosure, Nonverbal Disclosure, Emotion Recognition, and Copresence in Dyadic Interaction

The realism of avatars in terms of behavior and form is critical to the development of collaborative virtual environments. In the study we utilized state of the art, real-time face tracking technology to track and render facial expressions unobtrusively in a desktop CVE. Participants in dyads interacted with each other via either a video-conference (high behavioral realism and high form realism), voice only (low behavioral realism and low form realism), or an emotibox that rendered the dimensions of facial expressions abstractly in terms of color, shape, and orientation on a rectangular polygon (high behavioral realism and low form realism). Verbal and non-verbal self-disclosure were lowest in the videoconference condition while self-reported copresence and success of transmission and identification of emotions were lowest in the emotibox condition. Previous work demonstrates that avatar realism increases copresence while decreasing self-disclosure. We discuss the possibility of a hybrid realism solution that maintains high copresence without lowering self-disclosure, and the benefits of such an avatar on applications such as distance learning and therapy.

Collaborating in networked immersive spaces: as good as being there together?

Abstract In this paper we present the results of a trial in which two participants collaborated on a puzzle-solving task in networked virtual environments. The task was a Rubiks cube type puzzle, and this meant that the two participants had to interact with the space and with each other very intensively—and they did this successfully despite the limitation of the networked situation. We compare collaboration in networked immersive projection technology (IPTs) systems with previous results concerning collaboration in an IPT system linked with a desktop computer, and also with collaboration on the same task in the real world. Our findings show that the task performance in networked IPTs and in the real scenario are very similar to each other—whereas IPT-to-desktop performance is much poorer. Results about participants’ experience of ‘presence’, ‘co-presence’ and collaboration shed further light on these findings.

Being There Together and the Future of Connected Presence

Research on virtual environments has provided insights into the experience of presence (or being there) and copresence (being there together). Several dimensions of this experience, including the realism of the environment and of the avatar embodiment, have been investigated. At the same time, research on a number of new media has begun to use concepts that are similar to copresencesuch as mutual awareness, connected presence, and engagement. Since digital environments can be reconfigured and combined easily, and since an increasing number of such environments are used to connect people in their everyday lives, it is useful to think about the various modalities of connected presence as a continuumwith shared virtual environments in which people are fully immersed as an end-state. This paper proposes a model for the different modalities of connected presence whereby research on shared virtual environments can be modeled as approaching this end-state. It is argued that this model can improve our understanding both of the uses of shared virtual environments and of their future development among a variety of media for being there together. This paves the way for integrating research on shared virtual environments with research on other new media.

Max Weber and the sociology of culture

The thematic unity of Webers writings the uniqueness of the East the rise of the West the iron cage of modern rationalism the sociology of culture - Weber and beyond.

Mobile phones and the inexorable advance of multimodal connectedness

The aim of this article is to put mobile phones and uses of other new media into the broader context of cross-cultural comparison. The article focuses on two countries (Sweden and the USA) and on leisure and sociability. A problem with studies narrowly focusing on mobile phones is that the mobile’s uses cannot easily be separated from uses of other information and communication technologies (ICTs), as when ICTs compete for time spent or when key functions such as maintaining relationships are distributed across devices. Therefore the concept of multimodal connectedness is introduced to examine the whole range of ICTs. Once we can see how various technologies for maintaining relationships complement each other, we often find that convergences outweigh divergences between cultures. The implications for cross-cultural comparison are that we can distinguish between culture in an anthropological sense (that is, as a unique way of life) as against mediated culture, where there are increasingly common patterns of multimodally communicative relationships across cultures, even if differences also persist.

The Sacred and the Virtual: Religion in Multi-User Virtual Reality

This paper explores the social interaction among participants in a church service in an online multi-user virtual reality (VR) environment. It examines some of the main features of prayer meetings in a religiously-oriented virtual world and also what sets this world apart from other virtual worlds. Next, it examines some of the issues of research ethics and methods that are raised in the study of online behavior in virtual worlds. The paper then analyzes the text exchanges between participants in a virtual church service and some of the ways in which these compare with the content of a conventional church service. Finally, the paper draws out some implications for our understanding of the relation between interaction in the virtual and in the “real” world.

Activeworlds: geography and social interaction in virtual reality

This paper examines the interrelation between the geographical and social aspects of virtual worlds. We examine the main geographical features of Activeworlds, a multi-user virtual environment available over the Internet. Activeworlds is not only one of the most popular virtual environments, it is also the only publicly accessible one in which users can build themselves, and thus shape their geographical and social environment. We examine, among other features, transportation, mobility, and property appropriation in this virtual worlds system. Further, we describe some of the influences, both from urban planning and science fiction, on the geography of Activeworlds. We also examine the social relations that arise from these geographical conditions, including the ‘rough and ready’ mentality of this ‘cyberspace frontier’. Finally, we consider the implications of this virtual worlds system for theories of the emerging geographical and social relations in virtual environments.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Networked Worlds: Social Aspects of Multi-User Virtual Reality Technology

This paper examines two aspects of multi-user virtual reality (VR) systems; the socio-technical shaping of these systems and the social relations inside multi-user virtual worlds. The paper begins with an overview of the history of networked interactive computer graphics and examines the main factors which are currently shaping networked VR systems. The second part explores the social relations between users inside virtual worlds and makes comparisons with other forms of computer-mediated-communication. In the conclusion, these two parts are linked: how is the development of multi-user virtual reality technology influencing how users interact within virtual worlds - and vice versa?

The usability of collaborative virtual environments and methods for the analysis of interaction

This paper describes two methods for analyzing interactions in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs): one whereby quantitative data are captured, interaction is categorized into a number of activities, and statistical analysis can be performed on frequencies and sequences of events. The other is based on the transcription of individual fragments of interaction, which are analyzed in terms of their key dynamics. The two methods each have their strengths and weaknesses, especially in terms of generalizability and the lessons we can derive from them. Both also point to different problems that need to be addressed in methods for analyzing interactionsuch analysis being, in turn, a precondition for improving the usability of CVEs. The paper concludes with an argument for a combination of the two methods, and some reflections about the relationship between the analysis of interaction and the usability of CVEs.