@inproceedings{FoersterHeinGrafeetal.2021, author = {F{\"o}rster, Kristina and Hein, Rebecca and Grafe, Silke and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Fostering Intercultural Competencies in Initial Teacher Education: Implementation of Educational Design Prototypes Using a Social Virtual Reality Environment}, series = {Proceedings of Innovate Learning Summit}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Innovate Learning Summit}, editor = {Basteans, Theo}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260586}, pages = {95-108}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The combination of globalization and digitalization emphasizes the importance of media-related and intercultural competencies of teacher educators and preservice teachers. This article reports on the initial prototypical implementation of a pedagogical concept to foster such competencies of preservice teachers. The proposed pedagogical concept utilizes a social virtual reality (VR) framework since related work on the characteristics of VR has indicated that this medium is particularly well suited for intercultural professional development processes. The development is integrated into a larger design-based research approach that develops a theory-guided and empirically grounded professional development concept for teacher educators with a special focus on teacher educator technology competencies (TETC8). TETCs provide a suitable competence framework capable of aligning requirements for both media-related and intercultural competencies. In an exploratory study with student teachers, we designed, implemented, and evaluated a pedagogical concept. Reflection reports were qualitatively analyzed to gain insights into factors that facilitate or hinder the implementation of the immersive learning scenario as well as into the participants' evaluation of their learning experience. The results show that our proposed pedagogical concept is particularly suitable for promoting the experience of social presence, agency, and empathy in the group.}, subject = {Interkulturelles Lernen}, language = {en} } @article{DoellingerWienrichLatoschik2021, author = {D{\"o}llinger, Nina and Wienrich, Carolin and Latoschik, Marc Erich}, title = {Challenges and opportunities of immersive technologies for mindfulness meditation: a systematic review}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {2}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2021.644683}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259047}, pages = {644683}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Mindfulness is considered an important factor of an individual's subjective well-being. Consequently, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has investigated approaches that strengthen mindfulness, i.e., by inventing multimedia technologies to support mindfulness meditation. These approaches often use smartphones, tablets, or consumer-grade desktop systems to allow everyday usage in users' private lives or in the scope of organized therapies. Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR, AR, MR; in short: XR) significantly extend the design space for such approaches. XR covers a wide range of potential sensory stimulation, perceptive and cognitive manipulations, content presentation, interaction, and agency. These facilities are linked to typical XR-specific perceptions that are conceptually closely related to mindfulness research, such as (virtual) presence and (virtual) embodiment. However, a successful exploitation of XR that strengthens mindfulness requires a systematic analysis of the potential interrelation and influencing mechanisms between XR technology, its properties, factors, and phenomena and existing models and theories of the construct of mindfulness. This article reports such a systematic analysis of XR-related research from HCI and life sciences to determine the extent to which existing research frameworks on HCI and mindfulness can be applied to XR technologies, the potential of XR technologies to support mindfulness, and open research gaps. Fifty papers of ACM Digital Library and National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (PubMed) with and without empirical efficacy evaluation were included in our analysis. The results reveal that at the current time, empirical research on XR-based mindfulness support mainly focuses on therapy and therapeutic outcomes. Furthermore, most of the currently investigated XR-supported mindfulness interactions are limited to vocally guided meditations within nature-inspired virtual environments. While an analysis of empirical research on those systems did not reveal differences in mindfulness compared to non-mediated mindfulness practices, various design proposals illustrate that XR has the potential to provide interactive and body-based innovations for mindfulness practice. We propose a structured approach for future work to specify and further explore the potential of XR as mindfulness-support. The resulting framework provides design guidelines for XR-based mindfulness support based on the elements and psychological mechanisms of XR interactions.}, language = {en} } @article{HeinLatoschikWienrich2022, author = {Hein, Rebecca M. and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Inter- and transcultural learning in cocial virtual reality: a proposal for an inter- and transcultural virtual object database to be used in the implementation, reflection, and evaluation of virtual encounters}, series = {Multimodal Technologies and Interaction}, volume = {6}, journal = {Multimodal Technologies and Interaction}, number = {7}, issn = {2414-4088}, doi = {10.3390/mti6070050}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-278974}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Visual stimuli are frequently used to improve memory, language learning or perception, and understanding of metacognitive processes. However, in virtual reality (VR), there are few systematically and empirically derived databases. This paper proposes the first collection of virtual objects based on empirical evaluation for inter-and transcultural encounters between English- and German-speaking learners. We used explicit and implicit measurement methods to identify cultural associations and the degree of stereotypical perception for each virtual stimuli (n = 293) through two online studies, including native German and English-speaking participants. The analysis resulted in a final well-describable database of 128 objects (called InteractionSuitcase). In future applications, the objects can be used as a great interaction or conversation asset and behavioral measurement tool in social VR applications, especially in the field of foreign language education. For example, encounters can use the objects to describe their culture, or teachers can intuitively assess stereotyped attitudes of the encounters.}, language = {en} } @article{WolfDoellingerMaletal.2022, author = {Wolf, Erik and D{\"o}llinger, Nina and Mal, David and Wenninger, Stephan and Bartl, Andrea and Botsch, Mario and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Does distance matter? Embodiment and perception of personalized avatars in relation to the self-observation distance in virtual reality}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, issn = {2673-4192}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2022.1031093}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-299415}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Virtual reality applications employing avatar embodiment typically use virtual mirrors to allow users to perceive their digital selves not only from a first-person but also from a holistic third-person perspective. However, due to distance-related biases such as the distance compression effect or a reduced relative rendering resolution, the self-observation distance (SOD) between the user and the virtual mirror might influence how users perceive their embodied avatar. Our article systematically investigates the effects of a short (1 m), middle (2.5 m), and far (4 m) SOD between users and mirror on the perception of their personalized and self-embodied avatars. The avatars were photorealistic reconstructed using state-of-the-art photogrammetric methods. Thirty participants repeatedly faced their real-time animated self-embodied avatars in each of the three SOD conditions, where they were repeatedly altered in their body weight, and participants rated the 1) sense of embodiment, 2) body weight perception, and 3) affective appraisal towards their avatar. We found that the different SODs are unlikely to influence any of our measures except for the perceived body weight estimation difficulty. Here, the participants perceived the difficulty significantly higher for the farthest SOD. We further found that the participants' self-esteem significantly impacted their ability to modify their avatar's body weight to their current body weight and that it positively correlated with the perceived attractiveness of the avatar. Additionally, the participants' concerns about their body shape affected how eerie they perceived their avatars. The participants' self-esteem and concerns about their body shape influenced the perceived body weight estimation difficulty. We conclude that the virtual mirror in embodiment scenarios can be freely placed and varied at a distance of one to four meters from the user without expecting major effects on the perception of the avatar.}, language = {en} } @article{WienrichLatoschik2021, author = {Wienrich, Carolin and Latoschik, Marc Erich}, title = {eXtended Artificial Intelligence: New Prospects of Human-AI Interaction Research}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {2}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2021.686783}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260296}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Artificial Intelligence (AI) covers a broad spectrum of computational problems and use cases. Many of those implicate profound and sometimes intricate questions of how humans interact or should interact with AIs. Moreover, many users or future users do have abstract ideas of what AI is, significantly depending on the specific embodiment of AI applications. Human-centered-design approaches would suggest evaluating the impact of different embodiments on human perception of and interaction with AI. An approach that is difficult to realize due to the sheer complexity of application fields and embodiments in reality. However, here XR opens new possibilities to research human-AI interactions. The article's contribution is twofold: First, it provides a theoretical treatment and model of human-AI interaction based on an XR-AI continuum as a framework for and a perspective of different approaches of XR-AI combinations. It motivates XR-AI combinations as a method to learn about the effects of prospective human-AI interfaces and shows why the combination of XR and AI fruitfully contributes to a valid and systematic investigation of human-AI interactions and interfaces. Second, the article provides two exemplary experiments investigating the aforementioned approach for two distinct AI-systems. The first experiment reveals an interesting gender effect in human-robot interaction, while the second experiment reveals an Eliza effect of a recommender system. Here the article introduces two paradigmatic implementations of the proposed XR testbed for human-AI interactions and interfaces and shows how a valid and systematic investigation can be conducted. In sum, the article opens new perspectives on how XR benefits human-centered AI design and development.}, language = {en} } @article{DoellingerWolfMaletal.2022, author = {D{\"o}llinger, Nina and Wolf, Erik and Mal, David and Wenninger, Stephan and Botsch, Mario and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Resize Me! Exploring the user experience of embodied realistic modulatable avatars for body image intervention in virtual reality}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, issn = {2673-4192}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2022.935449}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-292940}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Obesity is a serious disease that can affect both physical and psychological well-being. Due to weight stigmatization, many affected individuals suffer from body image disturbances whereby they perceive their body in a distorted way, evaluate it negatively, or neglect it. Beyond established interventions such as mirror exposure, recent advancements aim to complement body image treatments by the embodiment of visually altered virtual bodies in virtual reality (VR). We present a high-fidelity prototype of an advanced VR system that allows users to embody a rapidly generated personalized, photorealistic avatar and to realistically modulate its body weight in real-time within a carefully designed virtual environment. In a formative multi-method approach, a total of 12 participants rated the general user experience (UX) of our system during body scan and VR experience using semi-structured qualitative interviews and multiple quantitative UX measures. Using body weight modification tasks, we further compared three different interaction methods for real-time body weight modification and measured our system's impact on the body image relevant measures body awareness and body weight perception. From the feedback received, demonstrating an already solid UX of our overall system and providing constructive input for further improvement, we derived a set of design guidelines to guide future development and evaluation processes of systems supporting body image interventions.}, language = {en} } @article{LatoschikWienrich2022, author = {Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin}, title = {Congruence and plausibility, not presence: pivotal conditions for XR experiences and effects, a novel approach}, series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality}, issn = {2673-4192}, doi = {10.3389/frvir.2022.694433}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-284787}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Presence is often considered the most important quale describing the subjective feeling of being in a computer-generated and/or computer-mediated virtual environment. The identification and separation of orthogonal presence components, i.e., the place illusion and the plausibility illusion, has been an accepted theoretical model describing Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for some time. This perspective article challenges this presence-oriented VR theory. First, we argue that a place illusion cannot be the major construct to describe the much wider scope of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, MR: or XR for short). Second, we argue that there is no plausibility illusion but merely plausibility, and we derive the place illusion caused by the congruent and plausible generation of spatial cues and similarly for all the current model's so-defined illusions. Finally, we propose congruence and plausibility to become the central essential conditions in a novel theoretical model describing XR experiences and effects.}, language = {en} }