ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: March 2021

Call: ICIDS 2021: 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling

Call for Papers

ICIDS 2021
The 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling
9-12 November 2021
Santa Cruz, California [see note below]
https://ardin.online/conferences/icids-interactive-storytelling/icids-2021-santa-cruz/
https://ardin.online/conferences/icids-interactive-storytelling/icids-2021-santa-cruz/icids-2021-calls/

A downloadable version of this call can be found here: pdf | plain text

Submission deadline (full, short papers and poster/demo): June 25, 2021

NOTE: Provisions with regards to the Covid-19 pandemic: If none of the authors of a paper can attend the conference due to the current pandemic or in case the situation requires us to run the conference virtually, publication of the proceedings will go ahead, and will be conditional on registration and remote presentation (either live or as pre-recorded video depending on the final arrangements).

ICIDS is the premier conference for researchers and practitioners concerned with studying digital interactive forms of narrative from a variety of perspectives, including theoretical, technological, and applied design lenses.… read more. “Call: ICIDS 2021: 14th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling”

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Exploring audience responses to virtual reality nonfiction in the home

[While the findings aren’t surprising, this straight-forward description of an ambitious longitudinal in-home audience research study with in depth interviews of a diverse cohort of participants nicely illustrates the potentials – both positive and negative – and the limitations of current virtual reality and the presence responses it evokes. See the original story in Immerse for three more images. –Matthew]

[Image: Some of the study participants, photographed at the beginning of the study.]

“You feel, in that moment, you are sitting next to them!”

Exploring audience responses to virtual reality nonfiction in the home

By Mandy Rose & David Green
March 12, 2021

Between 2017 and 2020, our interdisciplinary research team explored the potential of virtual reality for documentary within the Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters project. Drawing on the traditions of Computer Science, Documentary Studies and Experimental Psychology research, we conducted a series of quantitative and qualitative studies; we created an online mediography which offers a snapshot of the themes, teams and extent of English language VR work between 2012 and 2018; and we commissioned three path-finding VR projects.… read more. “Exploring audience responses to virtual reality nonfiction in the home”

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Call: International Workshop on Human-Centered Software Engineering for Changing Contexts of Use at INTERACT 2021

Call for Papers

International Workshop on Human-Centered Software Engineering for Changing Contexts of Use
organized by IFIP Working Group 13.2 on Methodologies for User-Centered Systems Design
August 31, 2021
https://sites.google.com/view/hcse-workshop-interact2021/

at INTERACT 2021 – The 18th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
August 30 – September 3, 2021
Bari, Italy [see note below]
https://www.interact2021.org/

Submissions: Position papers reporting original academic or industrial research relevant to the workshop’s theme (PDF files, 6-10 pages in Springer LNCS format – https://www.springer.com/it/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines)

Deadline for submission: April 30, 2021

NOTE (from INTERACT 2021 website): The aim is to run the conference in Bari. The venue is Hotel Villa Romanazzi Carducci; it is immersed in a park with a lot of space and green along various pathways. There are gardens that frame a modern structure, making it a great place welcome conference participants, taking all precautions to ensure participants’ health safety.… read more. “Call: International Workshop on Human-Centered Software Engineering for Changing Contexts of Use at INTERACT 2021”

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Presence and higher education: Moving to 3D, XR and experiential learning

[The author of this opinion piece in EdSurge argues for the continuation of larger trends in teaching and learning that emphasize experiential learning. For a related story see “Learning to move to experiential models with tech” in The PIE (Professionals in International Education). Some of these issues will also be the focus of discussion at the panel “Hopefully my students are here: How to build effective presence in virtual classroom settings” at the (virtual) Southern States Communication Association (SSCA) conference on April 8 with our colleagues Stephanie Kelly (North Carolina A&T State University), Jihyun Kim (University of Central Florida), David Westerman (North Dakota State University) and me. –Matthew]

[Image: A woman seen from over her right shoulder is in a large hall and viewing a corresponding image on a table she is holding. Credit: Zoran Pajic / Shutterstock]

OPINION

How Extended Reality Tools Can Bring New Life to Higher Education

By Soulaymane Kachani, Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Innovation at Columbia University
March 29, 2021

For video game players, the 2010s were a decade of extended reality.… read more. “Presence and higher education: Moving to 3D, XR and experiential learning”

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Call: 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2021)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2021)
Virtually Everywhere
November 9-11, 2021
http://hai-conference.net/hai2021/

Deadlines for Paper Submissions: June 21, 2021

People are increasingly interacting with computerized agents. Examples include autonomous and tele-presence robots in homes, healthcare, or search and rescue, virtual characters in the expanding gaming industry or for serious games, and agents representing other people through on-line social and interactive meeting places. Although these broad areas have their own unique research challenges, there is a clear commonality to be addressed in the investigation of how people interact with agents, whether they have physical or virtual embodiments, or represent remote people or an AI algorithm; this commonality requires explicit consideration.

The Ninth International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2021, in cooperation with ACM SIGCHI) aims to be the premier interdisciplinary venue for discussing and disseminating state-of-the-art research and results that have implications across conventional interaction boundaries including robots, software agents and digitally-mediated human-human communication.… read more. “Call: 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2021)”

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Missing in-person interaction, Berkeley’s design school launches virtual reality building

[The idea of reproducing part of a university campus in virtual reality isn’t new, but the one in this story from Berkeley News has some interesting characteristics and its creators intend to use it beyond the pandemic. See the original story for two more images and a 1:50 minute demonstration video (also available on YouTube). –Matthew]

[Image: Virtual Bauer Wurster’s digital studio desk space will allow students and instructors in the College of Environmental Design to connect and collaborate on projects. Credit: Courtesy of Luisa Caldas]

Missing in-person interaction, Berkeley’s design school launches virtual reality building

By Ivan Natividad
March 25, 2021

A team of UC Berkeley students and virtual reality specialists in the College of Environmental Design (CED) have found a way to visit Bauer Wurster Hall, the college’s iconic hulking concrete home building, without stepping foot on campus.… read more. “Missing in-person interaction, Berkeley’s design school launches virtual reality building”

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Call: HCI issue – Guiding the Conversation: New Theory and Design Perspectives for Conversational User Interfaces

Call for Papers

Guiding the Conversation: New Theory and Design Perspectives for Conversational User Interfaces
Special Issue of Human Computer Interaction Journal
https://madpickle.net/hcij/publicInfo/cfp_cui.pdf

Proposals due: 2nd June 2021

Conversational speech and text-based interfaces are growing in popularity, through the increased uptake of speech systems like Amazon Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. We have also seen the proliferation of chatbot interfaces in service contexts. This special issue aims to start building further critical mass around research on user-centric issues in CUI interaction, specifically investigating how theory, methods and empirical research can inform the development, understanding and design of CUIs.  It aims to serve as a catalyst for new data-driven insights, interaction paradigms, and theoretical viewpoints, for HCI researchers interested in this growing area of study. For this special issue, conversational interfaces are broadly defined, including task-based as well as social, conversational and companion-based interactions through text, speech and multimodal interaction.… read more. “Call: HCI issue – Guiding the Conversation: New Theory and Design Perspectives for Conversational User Interfaces”

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Study: People affected by COVID-19 are being nicer to machines

[An interesting new study described in USC News contributes to the Computers/Media Are Social Actors literature by exploring the roles of heuristic thinking and faith in technology in how people behave toward computers in the context of the pandemic; see the iScience article for much more information and a 1:29 minute video of the stimuli. –Matthew]

[Image: Screenshot of the stimuli video in which a study participant chooses how many tokens to return to the computer player in one of the experiment trials.]

People affected by COVID-19 are being nicer to machines

The pandemic has forced many to increasingly rely on machines. According to USC research, it’s also led people to like them a little more.

By Gary Polakovic
March 22, 2021

People are not very nice to machines. The disdain goes beyond the slot machine that emptied your wallet, a dispenser that failed to deliver a Coke or a navigation system that took you on an unwanted detour.… read more. “Study: People affected by COVID-19 are being nicer to machines”

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Job: Postdoctoral Fellow in Social Robotics at the University of Manitoba

Call for Applications

Post-doctoral Fellow in Social Robotics
The Human-Robot Interaction Lab at the University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Canada

Position open until filled

From Associate Professor James E. Young, Manitoba University
March 24, 2021

Hello! The Human-Robot Interaction Lab at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, Canada, has an open position for a post-doctoral fellow in social robotics. We are looking for an energetic and inventive person to work on designing feasible, real-world deployable social robots.

You will join our team and specifically work on two projects: designing domestic companion robots help support people living with loneliness, and collaborating with our local health network to design robots to support children living with disabilities and special needs.

The Human-Robot Interaction lab has a history of diverse projects and publications:
http://hci.cs.umanitoba.ca/projects-and-research?author=56
http://hci.cs.umanitoba.ca/publications?author=56
and is further part of a larger HCI group involving four HCI professors and a large number of students.… read more. “Job: Postdoctoral Fellow in Social Robotics at the University of Manitoba”

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Playing virtual reality video game may boost seniors’ memory

[The University of California San Francisco reports on a program of research investigating the potential benefits of immersive media and presence to improve memory in older adults. See the original story for three different images and a looping video. –Matthew]

[Image: Game movement was effected by a participant’s ambulation, which was co-registered into the game map from ankle-mounted tracking sensors. Source: Figure 2B from the Scientific Reports article]

Playing Virtual Reality Video Game May Boost Seniors’ Memory

By Emily Hayes
March 22, 2021

A decline in memory is a harsh reality for some people as they age and may even mark the start of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. But new research suggests that time spent in virtual reality – through a video game – could help older adults restore their memory into better shape.

Scientists at UC San Francisco’s Neuroscape brain research center have developed a first-of-its-kind virtual reality video game that can improve memory in healthy, older adults, according to a study published Jan.… read more. “Playing virtual reality video game may boost seniors’ memory”

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