Audioconferencing systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, seeking to improve immersion, intelligibility, and sense of presence. Various opportunities exist to make mobile multiparty conference calls more realistic, interactive, and immersive. These include spatial audio, interactive manipulation of avatar positions, and whisper mode. The authors analyze the utility of avatar movement and sidebar whisper-mode functionality within which a subset of participants can engage in an ad-hoc sidebar conversation privately from the remaining participants. Participants found that avatar movement was useful, but approximately half the participants only used this feature for initial positioning of the avatars in a desired configuration in the first task. The ability to maintain sidebar conversations was used frequently and rated highly in negotiation activity. However, participants made almost no use of this feature in the conversation activity for which negotiation was not involved.

Authors: Aguilera, Emanuel; Lopez, Jose J.; Cooperstock, Jeremy R.
Affiliations: Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applic., Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia, Valencia, Spain; Centre for Intelligent Machines, McGill University, Montreal, Canada(See document for exact affiliation information.)
JAES Volume 64 Issue 5 pp. 332-341; May 2016
Publication Date: May 19, 2016 Import into BibTeX
Permalink: https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18138

Click to purchase paper as a non-member or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!

This paper costs $33 for non-members and is free for AES members and E-Library subscribers.

Learn more about the AES E-Library

E-Library Location: (CD JAES64)   /jaes64/5/pg332.pdf

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2016.0009

Start a discussion about this report!