Session: CIE-31-01 VARE User Experience (UX) and Human-Machine Interaction

Paper Number: 194251

194251 - Assessing Co-Presence in Avatar-Mediated Remote Collaboration in Virtual Reality 

Remote collaboration in immersive virtual reality (VR) environments has emerged as a promising solution for geographically distant teams. The goal is to understand how avatar-mediated remote collaboration impacts users' sense of co-presence and perceived realness within virtual environments, aiming to improve teamwork dynamics among dispersed teams in creative domains. The study compares head-mounted display (HMD) based remote collaboration approaches, focusing on avatar-mediated communication in virtual reality versus traditional video-based methods. In this study, design students from diverse locations and specializations collaboratively planned for an art installation by embodying avatars within a virtual reality environment. The assessment centered on evaluating the parameters of social presence such as perceived realness, co-presence and mediated social presence of the collaboration partner through post-experiment self-reported surveys, quantitative proxemics data analysis and participant feedback. The findings suggest that avatar-mediated collaboration significantly enhances perceived realness and co-presence in virtual reality, offering insights for improving remote teamwork dynamics in creative fields. Additionally, the analysis supports the possibility of using the proxemics data including locomotory trajectories and interpersonal behaviour analyzed through zones of collaboration space in the creative task environment, as a the significant method for supporting statistical results obtained from the survey responses of the post experimentco-presence questionnaire.

Presenting Author: Prasad Onkar Indian Institute of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: Prasad Onkar completed his Ph.D. in Computer-Aided Conceptual Design from the Center for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM), IISc Bangalore. He holds a Master of Technology degree in Product Design and Manufacturing from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, Karnataka, and a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Karnatak University, Dharwad, Karnataka. Prior to joining IIT Hyderabad, he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Design at IIT Guwahati. He was also a Visiting Researcher at the Virtual Prototyping Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. He is also the convener of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) and a member of the Rural Development Center of the Institute.