VIRTUAL TOGETHERNESS
By RACHEL MCDONNELL, KATJA ZIBREK, AND SEAN MARTIN, GRAPHICS, VISION AND VISUALISATION GROUP, SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND STATISTICS AT TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (IE) 2018
The future of communication through social media is expected to include virtual humans in virtual environments. Soon, we will be conversing with our friends through photo-realistic avatars. But how will this affect our sense of intimacy and closeness? Will it enhance our communication or delve into the “uncanny valley”, where we react with repulsion to virtual humans that appear extremely realistic?
This virtual reality experiment investigates the limits of conversation between a virtual and real human, and how the computer generated content affects our sense of togetherness — will it create a barrier, or help us to converse freely and lose our inhibitions?
BIO
Rachel McDonnell is an assistant professor, Katja Zibrek is a postdoctoral researcher, and Sean Martin is a research assistant at the Graphics, Vision and Visualisation Group (GV2) at the School of Computer Science and Statistics in Trinity College Dublin. GV2 is an internationally active research group dedicated to carrying out innovative research in computer graphics, computer vision and all aspects of visual computing.