id |
2006_750 |
authors |
Touvra, Zoopigi N. |
year |
2006 |
title |
The potential of Virtual Environments as contexts for Communication |
source |
Communicating Space(s) [24th eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9541183-5-9] Volos (Greece) 6-9 September 2006, pp. 750-753 |
doi |
https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2006.750
|
summary |
This paper documents a study done considering Virtual Reality (VR) as a spatial representational context which supports communication. It aims to identify whether VR could be considered as a communication medium, a tool that could be used for the successful transmission of information and messages, as well as the future form, content and use of it. That is, how does communication occur in a Virtual Environment (VE), by taking into account its visual properties and spatial parameters and under which conditions communication messages are conducted via VR systems, deriving from the one part (sender) and concluding to the other (receiver). The methods selected for this study involve observation and use of questionnaires at the end of each session. An already existing Internet-based online multi-user virtual environment has been chosen as the context where this survey will be carried out, that is the site Active Worlds, http://www.activeworlds.com, which can be accessed very easy to any computer user, in a desktop form. Firstly, we investigated the time needed, depending on the complexity per case, for a user of the VR application to get acquainted with the system. We were interested to know if the meaning that we would like to communicate had either remained the same through all the time of the experience or had been “modified” in a certain way and if so, for what reason. Another issue that was examined was the way in which the spatial context in a specific VE affects the way communication occurs. The framework of the application may influence the way the person receives a message, for example by making assumptions and references that he would not have made in a different environment- outside VR. After the end of the experience, the user was invited to describe his/ her impressions, with the communication factor being stressed, that is to mean if and at what extent VR can be characterized as a communication medium, as it is mentioned above, even for limited information and messages in general. |
keywords |
Virtual Reality; Active Worlds; Virtual Environment (VE); Communication in VE |
series |
eCAADe |
email |
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full text |
file.pdf (136,172 bytes) |
references |
Content-type: text/plain
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last changed |
2022/06/07 07:58 |
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