Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
mentors, assistances (Giraffa & Viccari, 1999), learning peers (Chou, Chan, & Lin, 2003) or as
proposed in here, as a collaborative facilitator with the aim of enhancing the collaborative
process; as mentioned, by the analysis of the nonverbal behavior of the users' avatars.
2. Nonverbal interaction in CVEs
Broadly defined, nonverbal behavior might include most of what we do; it even includes
certain characteristics of verbal behavior by distinguishing the content, or meaning of
speech, from paralinguistic cues such as loudness, tempo, pitch or intonation (Patterson,
1983). Moreover, the use of certain objects like our decided outfit, or the physical
environment when used to communicate something, without saying it, has traditionally
being considered as NVC. Nonverbal behavior can be used to substitute, complement,
accent, regulate or even contradict the spoken message (Knapp & Hall, 2007).
In real life, nonverbal interaction involves three factors (Knapp & Hall, 2007):
environmental
conditions, physical characteristics of the communicators,
and
behaviors of communicators
, all of
them clearly restricted to the computer scenario conditions.
The
environmental conditions
that will probably affect the most during interaction in a
computer scenario are given by the architecture and virtual objects around, what Hall (1968)
defined as fixed-features, space organized by unmoving boundaries such as a room, and
semi-fixed features, the arrangement of moveable objects such as a chair.
In a computerized environment, the
physical characteristics
of the interactants will be given
by the users' avatar both appearance and body movements. While the appearance typically
is given by a set of characteristics for the user to choose, like male or female avatar, and
maybe a set of different cloths, skin or hair colors for example. As of body movements,
Kujanpää & Manninen (2003) presented a considerable set of possible elements an avatar
can include to manage the transmitting of NVC.
The avatar's body movements are usually restricted mainly due to their associated
technology cost. Typically, in CVEs the users' avatars are naturalistic (Salem & Earle, 2000),
with a low-level details approach and humanoid-like, they can display some basic humans'
actions or expressions.
Other important consideration is that the means offered by the CVE to the user, in order to
transmit NVC to his/her avatar, interfere with its spontaneity and therefore its revealing.
The three different approaches to transmit nonverbal behavior from the users to his/her
avatar in a VE (Capin et al., 1997) are:
1.
directly controlled with sensors attached to the user;
2.
user-guided, when the user guides the avatar defining tasks and movements; and
3.
semi-autonomous, where the avatar has an internal state that depends on its goals and
its environment, and this state is modified by the user. For example, when in a video
game, the player achieves a goal and his/her avatar celebrates it.
The
behaviors of communicators
relay on the context that in a CVE will be given by its
purpose. For example, in a video game, the users' interaction will be controlled by their
intention on getting the goals of the game, while in a social CVE the participants interaction
will be more likely to be directed to those they feel socially attracted −see Table 2.
