How Do We Interact in Collaborative Virtual Reality?

Abstract

Nonverbal interaction includes most of what we do; the interaction resulted from other means than words or their meaning. In computer-mediated interaction, the richness of face-to-face interaction has not been completely achieved. However, multiuser virtual reality, a computer-generated environment that allows users to share virtual spaces and virtual objects through their graphic representation, is a highly visual technology in which nonverbal interaction is better supported when compared with other media. Still, like in any technology media, interaction is accomplished distinctively due to technical and design issues. In collaborative virtual reality, the analysis of nonverbal interaction represents a helpful mechanism to support feedback in teaching or training scenarios, to understand collaborative behavior, or to improve this technology. This chapter discussed the characteristics of nonverbal interaction in virtual reality, presenting advances in the automatic interpretation of the users' nonverbal interaction while a spatial task is collaboratively executed.