International Society
for Presence Research

Month: April 2026

  • Call: Inclusive AI workshop at ICMI 2026

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Inclusive AIA workshop at ICMI 2026,  the 28th ACM International Conference on Multimodal InteractionOctober 5, 2026Naples, ItalyWorkshop: https://sites.google.com/view/inclusive-aiICMI 2026: https://icmi.acm.org/2026/ Deadline for submission of extended abstracts: June 15, 2026 We invite submissions to the inaugural Inclusive AI workshop at ICMI 2026. This workshop aims to rethink AI-based multimodal interaction through the lens of inclusivity, with a focus on diverse and underrepresented user populations. As AI systems increasingly engage in social interaction, they often rely on normative assumptions about communication, behavior, and language. These assumptions can lead to exclusion, misrecognition, and interaction breakdowns, particularly for individuals with disabilities…

    Read more: Call: Inclusive AI workshop at ICMI 2026

  • AI researchers want AI to fake “thinking”

    Published:

    [In this post from his Machine Society Substack, technology writer Mike Elgan describes new research that demonstrates what we would call medium-as-social-actor presence. The researchers find that when an AI chatbot takes longer to respond to queries, it is perceived as taking longer to think of the answer. Elgan puts it this way: “people judge AI the way they judge people. If people give a slower response, we tend to assume it’s a more thoughtful one.” Elgan argues that deliberately slowing AI response times to manipulate user perceptions in this way is unethical and encourages dangerous delusions regarding the true…

    Read more: AI researchers want AI to fake “thinking”

  • Call: Generative AI Companions: What They Are and Why That Matters

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Generative AI Companions: What They Are and Why That MattersA special issue of the journal Philosophical Studieshttps://link.springer.com/collections/iiaagcacje Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2026 The special issue aims to explore the ontological status of Generative AI companions and the moral upshot of entering into a relationship with these entities. Guest Editors: Marianna B. Ganapini — mbergam1@charlotte.edu Kesavan Thanagopal — kesavan.thanagopal@gmail.com Robert Clowes — robert.clowes@gmail.com DESCRIPTION The pervasiveness of Generative AI (GenAI) companion apps and the ease with which one can use them to create companion chatbots to interact with, have raised some concerns among the general public.…

    Read more: Call: Generative AI Companions: What They Are and Why That Matters

  • VR approach may reduce preoperative anxiety in cancer

    Published:

    [This story from Healio describes an ongoing project to develop and test a 45-60 minute “choose your own adventure” presence-evoking virtual reality experience to reduce the anxiety of cancer patients before they undergo surgery. For more details, the original version of the story includes a 5:06 minute video, and a 4:34 minute CBC News Manitoba report about the project is available on YouTube. Although they don’t focus on the role of presence, a quick online search reveals promising results when VR is used to reduce anxiety before cardiac surgery (e.g., these three studies), elective surgery, and for both children and…

    Read more: VR approach may reduce preoperative anxiety in cancer

  • Call: AI and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and Governance

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Artificial Intelligence and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and GovernanceAn International ConferenceSeptember 10-11, 2026Times School of Media and School of Artificial IntelligenceBennett UniversityGreater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India [and online]https://necs.org/news/calls-for-papers/artificial-intelligence-and-children-influencing-societies-human-values-and Deadline for submissions of abstracts: May 3, 2026 (full papers for accepted abstracts due June 21, 2026) The Times School of Media and School of Artificial Intelligence at Bennett University invites research papers and practice based presentations for an international conference on the theme, Artificial Intelligence and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and Governance, scheduled for 10th and 11th September 2026 at Bennett University.…

    Read more: Call: AI and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and Governance

  • Sinceerly uses AI to make your AI-generated emails seem more human

    Published:

    [As more people use AI to compose grammatically perfect and typo-free emails, it’s easier to detect the AI and dismiss the message as computer-generated. To counter this break in medium-as-social-actor presence, and to draw attention to the problem, a Harvard student created software that uses AI to edit your AI-generated emails to make them more likely to appear to have been written by a human (!). Details are in the story below from Livemint, where the original version includes the relevant segment of a TBPN podcast (also available on YouTube) in which the creator discusses Sinceerly. See also earlier coverage…

    Read more: Sinceerly uses AI to make your AI-generated emails seem more human

  • Call: Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaverse

    Published:

    Call for Chapters: Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaversehttps://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/9930 Editor:Vincenzo De Masi, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China Deadline for submission of proposals: May 24, 2026 (Full chapters due: July 26, 2026) A call for chapters is open for the edited volume Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaverse, to be published by IGI Global Scientific Publishing. INTRODUCTION The idea of the metaverse, first associated with Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and later developed in contemporary strategic and technological terms by Matthew Ball, has evolved from a speculative virtual world into a broader framework for persistent,…

    Read more: Call: Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaverse

  • US DOJ grant supports VR training for domestic violence response

    Published:

    [A million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Justice is funding the development of a new presence-evoking training program for professionals who respond to reports of domestic violence. This story from George Mason University notes that a primary focus of the project, which may become a national (or international?) model, will be on developing the content of the practice scenarios. See a closely-related March 2026 story from the same source for more details. –Matthew] [VR headsets in the college’s Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation] $1 million U.S. Department of Justice grant will support virtual reality training for domestic violence…

    Read more: US DOJ grant supports VR training for domestic violence response

  • Call: Communication, Digital Conversation, and Media Technologies at HICSS-60

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Communication, Digital Conversation, and Media TechnologiesA minitrack at HICSS-60, the 2027 Hawaii International Conference on System SciencesJanuary 5-8, 2027Big Island of HawaiiMinitrack: https://communicationhicss.wordpress.com/HICSS-60: http://hicss.hawaii.edu/ Deadline for submissions of papers: June 15, 2026 The Communication, Digital Conversation, and Media Technologies minitrack focuses on the study of communication taking place on digital and social media. Communication is the making of meaning and culture among people, with growing interconnections with a world of human-machine interactions. In mediated form, communication can involve text, emoticons, audio, images, video, virtual or augmented reality, or any combination thereof. The minitrack welcomes research on all…

    Read more: Call: Communication, Digital Conversation, and Media Technologies at HICSS-60

  • How XR is transforming ancient Arab heritage sites into immersive visitor experiences

    Published:

    [This article from Arab News describes how the trend toward experiential tourism at cultural sites requires careful use of presence-evoking technologies. As one expert in the story notes, “immersive technology allows museums to recreate the historical contexts in which artworks once existed, helping visitors better understand the environments and cultures that shaped them, [but] ‘technology is always at the service of the narrative — never the other way around.’” See the original version of the story for five more images including a detailed infographic. –Matthew] [Image: At the Louvre Abu Dhabi, researchers relied on the archeological remains of the Forum…

    Read more: How XR is transforming ancient Arab heritage sites into immersive visitor experiences

  • Call: Games Against Death: Games, Mortality, and the Politics of Dying

    Published:

    Call for Participants: Games Against Death: Games, Mortality, and the Politics of DyingA Workshop at DiGRA 2026, the 17th annual conference of the Digital Games Research AssociationJune 14, 2026, 10am-1pmMaynooth, Ireland and onlineWorkshop: https://bcmcr.org/research/cfp-games-against-death-workshop/DiGRA 2026: https://www.digraconference2026.com/ Deadline for submission of abstracts and expressions of interest: April 27, 2026 This workshop, taking place at the DiGRA 2026 conference, proposes “Games Against Death” as a conceptual and organising motif. Drawing on Douglas Davies’ notion of “words against death” (2017) – cultural practices through which societies negotiate, resist, ritualise, and give meaning to mortality – we argue that games function as powerful interactive…

    Read more: Call: Games Against Death: Games, Mortality, and the Politics of Dying

  • St. Mary’s College VR disaster simulation lets nurses “body-swap” with patients

    Published:

    [Presence-evoking simulations are increasingly part of medical training, but a recent Nursing Simulation Day at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana introduced an interesting new “body swapping” feature in which students could switch roles between caregiver and patient. Details are in this story from the student-run newspaper The Observer. –Matthew] [Image: Nursing student gives clinical report to VR patient, utilizing the AI powered technology to receive real time feedback on procedures. Credit: Photo by Soledad Castellanos / The Observer] Saint Mary’s nursing program debuts new VR and disaster simulation experience The department featured its new VR simulators for students…

    Read more: St. Mary’s College VR disaster simulation lets nurses “body-swap” with patients

ISPR Presence News

Subscribe

Search ISPR Presence News:

Categories

Archives

Recent Posts

Recent Comments