Metaverse for advancing government: Prospects, challenges and a research agenda

A number of government agencies have started deploying the Metaverse to connect better with their constituents. The Metaverse provides a rich interaction environment and has the potential to engage with, especially, the younger generation. However, the Metaverse's potential impact on the government sector has been given limited attention....

AnyoneNet: Synchronized Speech and Talking Head Generation for Arbitrary Persons

Automatically generating videos in which synthesized speech is synchronized with lip movements in a talking head has great potential in many human-computer interaction scenarios. In this paper, we present an automatic method to generate synchronized speech and talking-head videos on the basis of text and a single face image of an arbitrary...

Embodiment of virtual feet correlates with motor performance in a target-stepping task: a pilot study

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) has gained popularity in neurorehabilitation for its potential to increase patients’ motivation and engagement. A crucial yet relatively unexplored aspect of IVR interfaces is the patients’ representation in the virtual world, such as with an avatar. A higher level of embodiment over avatars has been shown to...

Metaverse beyond the hype: Multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy

The metaverse has the potential to extend the physical world using augmented and virtual reality technologies allowing users to seamlessly interact within real and simulated environments using avatars and holograms. Virtual environments and immersive games (such as, Second Life, Fortnite, Roblox and VRChat) have been described as antecedents of...

Hiding Assistive Robots During Training in Immersive VR Does Not Affect Users’ Motivation, Presence, Embodiment, Performance, Nor Visual Attention

Combining immersive virtual reality (VR) using head-mounted displays (HMDs) with assisting robotic devices might be a promising procedure to enhance neurorehabilitation. However, it is still an open question how immersive virtual environments (VE) should be designed when interacting with rehabilitation robots. In conventional training, the...

Conversational Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has become a standard approach for the collection of the human input required by scientists and practitioners alike to execute their experiments, or to train, control, and verify the behavior of their intelligent systems. Despite years of successful research and industrial application, how to improve the engagement and satisfaction...

Using Worker Avatars to Improve Microtask Crowdsourcing

The future of crowd work has been identified to depend on worker satisfaction, but we lack a thorough understanding of how worker satisfaction can be increased in microtask crowdsourcing. Prior work has shown that one solution is to build tasks that are engaging. To facilitate engagement, two methods that have received attention in recent HCI...

Effects of Using Avatars in a Game-Based Learning Environment

Peer reviewing is an approach often used in digital (higher) education as it represents a possibility to provide feedback to large student groups. However, especially in digital learning contexts, students feel being disconnected from the anonymous group of learners, leading to low-quality feedback. When feedback is open, and counterparts are...

Design and Development of a Physical and a Virtual Embodied Conversational Agent for Social Support of Older Adults

Populations in developed societies show an increasingly higher life expectancy across the globe. To support older adults to live longer and healthier lives in the familiar surroundings of their homes, technological developments, such as robots and avatars, have a great potential. To investigate long-term interactions between older adults and a ...