ISPR Presence News

Monthly Archives: June 2023

New publication: The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication

New Publication:

The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication
Edited by Andrea L. Guzman, Rhonda McEwen, and Steve Jones

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd (August 2023)
ISBN-10 : ‎152977392X
ISBN-13:  978-1529773927
640 pages
https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-human-machine-communication/book273648
https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/the-sage-handbook-of-human-machine-communication/book273648
https://www.amazon.com/SAGE-Handbook-Human-Machine-Communication/dp/152977392X/

[Description:]

The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication edited by Andrea L. Guzman, Rhonda McEwen, and Steve Jones is now available. The Handbook’s four sections – Histories & Trajectories, Approaches & Methods, Concepts & Contexts, and Technologies & Applications – provides foundational research and generative thinking on the numerous facets of people’s communication with AI, social robots, algorithms, IOTs, and other smart technologies. The Handbook is interdisciplinary with perspectives from the social sciences, engineering, arts, and the humanities as well as international in scope, with its 65 chapters written by authors spanning the globe. We worked on the Handbook throughout the pandemic and are deeply grateful to our authors who gave us their precious time to bring this project to fruition.… read more. “New publication: The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication”

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Innovative VR therapy helps patients overcome PTSD caused by ICU hospital stays

[Local TV stations in the US including NBC-Dallas-Fort Worth, WINK, WISH and WFMZ recently aired the same news report (with their own anchors’ introduction) based on a promising application of presence being explored by researchers at the University of Central Florida, as described in more detail in the UCF Today story below. –Matthew]

[Image: A UCF RESTORES team member conducts a simulated therapy session designed to help a patient overcome PTSD resulting from their stay in intensive care]

Innovative VR Therapy Helps Patients Overcome PTSD Caused by Hospital Stays

Assistant Professor of Nursing Brian Peach is leading the study, which uses exposure therapy featuring virtual reality with real sounds and smells, all mimicking the patients’ intensive care experience.

By Chad Binette ’06MPA
February 16, 2023

Exceptional medical care from first responders, nurses and doctors routinely saves the lives of patients with critical illnesses.… read more. “Innovative VR therapy helps patients overcome PTSD caused by ICU hospital stays”

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Call: “Decoding Artificial Sociality: Technologies, Dynamics, Implications” issue of New Media and Society

Call for Papers

Decoding Artificial Sociality: Technologies, Dynamics, Implications
Special Issue in New Media & Society
Journal: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/nms

Special Issue Editors:
Iliana Depounti, Loughborough University, United Kingdom, i.depounti@lboro.ac.uk
Simone Natale, University of Turin, Italy, simone.natale@unito.it

Deadline for abstract submission: September 30, 2023

The emergence and development of technologies enabling communications between humans and machines sparked a rethinking of the scope and implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this context, software that mimics social interaction is becoming available to vast masses of users around the world. Yet we still lack interpretative frameworks and conceptual tools that go beyond the analysis of specific platforms to capture new kinds of social experiences and engagements that these technologies facilitate. This special issue aims to fill this gap. We invite contributors to interrogate the implications, dynamics, opportunities and risks of “Artificial Sociality,” i.e. technologies and practices able to sustain the impression of social competence and behavior in machines.… read more. “Call: “Decoding Artificial Sociality: Technologies, Dynamics, Implications” issue of New Media and Society”

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Machine learning turns old maps into 3D digital models of lost neighborhoods

[A group of researchers at Ohio State University are using machine learning analyses of old maps to create VR-viewable 3D models of neighborhoods as they existed decades ago. This story is from Ohio State News and an earlier report (at the link in the editor’s note at the end) includes this quote from Professor Harvey Miller: “Our ultimate goal would be to come up with 3D visualizations that are realistic enough to give people a visceral feeling of what those neighborhoods were like… We see this as a crossover between science and humanities.” –Matthew]

[Image: A 3D model of the Driving Park neighborhood in Columbus in 1961 — before it was destroyed to build a highway. Credit: Center for Urban and Regional Analysis/Ohio State University]

Turning old maps into 3D digital models of lost neighborhoods

Machine learning technique viewed as boon to urban research

By Jeff Grabmeier, Ohio State News
June 28, 2023

Imagine strapping on a virtual reality headset and “walking” through a long-gone neighborhood in your city – seeing the streets and buildings as they appeared decades ago.… read more. “Machine learning turns old maps into 3D digital models of lost neighborhoods”

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Call: 1st Joint Workshop on Cross Reality at ISMAR 2023

Call for Papers

1st Joint Workshop on Cross Reality
To be held in conjunction with the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2023)
Sydney, Australia and Online

Workshop: http://cross-realities.org
October 16, 2023

ISMAR 2023: https://ismar23.org/
October 16-20, 2023

Submissions deadline: July 17, 2023

We invite researchers, practitioners, and designers to participate in the 1st Joint Workshop on Cross Reality (CR).

SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP

Cross Reality (CR) is an emerging technology that focuses on the concurrent usage of or the transition between multiple systems at different points on the reality-virtuality continuum (RVC), including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), and Augmented Reality (AR). CR has gained significant attention in recent years due to its potential for revolutionizing various research and industry areas where users need to comprehend and explore spatial data and its relevant information in different forms.… read more. “Call: 1st Joint Workshop on Cross Reality at ISMAR 2023”

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Netflix cleverly immerses Black Mirror viewers in cautionary world of “Joan is Awful” episode

[Others have used marketing campaigns, in some cases including presence-evoking technologies like VR, to bring audience members into the world (or ‘universe’) of a film or TV series, but as the Sound & Vision story below explains, Netflix has created a particularly clever cross-media campaign that brings audiences into the dystopian reality portrayed in “Joan is Awful,” the first episode of the latest season of Black Mirror. A story in LADbible describes how some audience members have had their name and picture used in real-world billboards for the campaign; and a story in DesignTAXI that includes more pictures of the billboards calls that aspect of the campaign “uncanny” and begins with this:

“Since first heading to Netflix in 2016, Charlie Brooker’s chilling dystopian anthology series has had audiences questioning: is this the real life, or is this Black Mirror?”… read more. “Netflix cleverly immerses Black Mirror viewers in cautionary world of “Joan is Awful” episode”

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Call: 5th Zip-Scene Conference on Immersive Storytelling

Call for Presentations

5th Zip-Scene Conference on Immersive Storytelling
In cooperation with
Art*VR Festival
TOPIC: Dimensions of Empathy. How Empathy and the Concept of Ethics Changed between the Holodeck and the Metaverse? How our trust and sense of criticism shapes the ways we understand old and novel interactive digital narratives?
November 2-4, 2023
Prague, Czech Republic; DOX: Centre For Contemporary Art, Poupětova 1, 170 00 Praha 7-Holešovice
https://conf.zip-scene.com/

Submission deadline: July 15, 2023

The concept of the Metaverse embodies a boundless and interconnected sense of compatibility and engagement, which amplifies our expectations for immersive forms of media. In the early days, visionaries already envisioned fully realized immersive environments akin to those depicted in the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series and described in Janet H. Murray’s influential book, Hamlet on the Holodeck. Social VR platforms – by allowing creators to adapt theatrical performances to their platforms – have ventured into exploring shared experiences and collective activities that influence both our physical and virtual realms.… read more. “Call: 5th Zip-Scene Conference on Immersive Storytelling”

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They’re selling nudes of imaginary women on Reddit – and it’s working

[What psychological, ethical and other differences are there between pornographic images or videos that feature fictional rather than real people? This story from Rolling Stone raises lots of thought-provoking questions about the use of presence-evoking technologies in the context of sexuality. Despite the certainty expressed here regarding sexual deepfake videos featuring real people, see also the Wired essay “Deepfake porn reveals a ‘pervert’s dilemma’: What’s the moral difference between indulging in a sexual fantasy about someone and watching a deepfake of them?” –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Photo illustration uses photograph by Svetlana Fedoseeva/Adobe Stock]

They’re Selling Nudes of Imaginary Women on Reddit — and It’s Working

Claudia is 19, beautiful, and horny. She’s also a 100-percent AI creation

By Ej Dickson
April 10, 2023

“F/19 feeling pretty today,” Claudia’s post reads. She’s got straight black bangs and giant blue-green eyes, with just the socially appropriate amount of cleavage sticking out of her grey tank top.… read more. “They’re selling nudes of imaginary women on Reddit – and it’s working”

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Call: Conversational AI issue of IEEE Transactions on AI

Call for Papers

IEEE Transactions on AI: Special Issue on Conversational AI
https://sites.google.com/site/hwinteractionlab/ieee-transactions-on-ai-special-issue

Submission deadline: July 30, 2023

Conversational AI is an emerging interdisciplinary research and innovation field, involving diverse topics ranging from machine learning, speech and natural language processing, understanding and generation, to ethics, sociology and psychology. It has gained increasing popularity in recent years through effective integration in commercial personal assistants such as Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Personal Assistant, ChatGPT, and many others.

State of the art in conversational AI is being advanced through a number of global initiatives, including the Amazon Alexa prize competition and NeurIPS Conversational Intelligence Challenge live competition. These are continuing to identify and address various open challenges and questions including, in particular, the growing need for large multi-modal language models to deliver more natural, socially responsible and multi-lingual conversational agents, user interfaces and human-machine dialogue systems.… read more. “Call: Conversational AI issue of IEEE Transactions on AI”

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“Forest bathing” might work in virtual reality too

[This MIT Technology Review story describes new evidence for another positive application of presence, the use of a virtual forest setting to produce some of the same benefits as does spending time in an actual forest. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Lukáš Hejtmánek]

“Forest bathing” might work in virtual reality too

Could electronic forests elicit the same physiological responses as real ones?

By Charlie Metcalfe
June 26, 2023

The Japanese concept of “forest bathing,” or shinrin-­yoku (森林浴), has long been acclaimed for its supposed health benefits. Hundreds of scientific studies suggest that it can improve mental health and cognitive performance, reduce blood pressure, and even treat depression and anxiety. Yet forests can be hard to reach or, for some, completely inaccessible in a world where as many as 5 billion people might live in urban environments by 2030.

Some scientists believe that virtual reality could offer a remedy.… read more. ““Forest bathing” might work in virtual reality too”

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