Can Virtual Worlds Facilitate Conflict Resolution?
Doron Friedman, Sammy Ofer School of Communications, The Interdisciplinary Center
Virtual Worlds, Real Peace:
Acknowledgements
• • • • Sharon Joffe, IDC Tsahi Hayat, IDC EU Project – Presenccia UNLV-IDC Project
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Agenda
• Virtual reality and virtual worlds • Scientific research of human behavior in virtual environments • Some proposals for conflict resolution using virtual worlds
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Contact Hypothesis
Contact under certain conditions, such as equal status, cooperation towards a superordinate goal, and institutional support, will create a positive intergroup encounter, which, in turn, will bring about an improvement in intergroup relations.
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
mediated
contact
?
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Indirect mediated contact?
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
“6-degrees of separation”
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
But what is the quality of mediated contacts?
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
The mediated contact hypothesis?
• Under conditions C1,C2,C3,… contact among rival groups can reduce hostility (as measured by M1,M2,…) by a factor of X • Under conditions C1,C2,C3,… mediated contact among rival groups can reduce hostility (as measured by M1,M2,…) by a factor of X’ • What is the relation between X and X’? • How can we make X’=X or even X’>X?
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Advanced Virtuality Lab
• Research themes: virtual reality, virtual worlds, neuro-physiological interfaces
• http://www.idc.ac.il/communications/avl/
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Highly-Immersive Virtual Reality
(10 years ago)
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Some Presence Definitions
• ‘The sense of “being there”’ (Held & Durlach, Sheridan, Zeltzer: premier issue of PRESENCE, 1992) • ‘A perceptual illusion of nonmediation’ (Lombard and Ditton, 1997)
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Technion, Israel UCL CS UMH, Spain
Presencia EU Project (2003-2006)
UCL ION
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
TUG Graz Austria
g.Tec, Austria
Presence – our defintion
• Successful substitution of real sense data by computer-generated sense data • ‘Successful’ – response is similar to expected response in reality • ‘Response’ –
– Low level physiological high level cognitive and emotional – Includes verbal responses about ‘being there’ – Response includes potential for interaction
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Social Presence, Co-Presence
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Is there a sense of presence in online virtual worlds (such as Second Life)?
Our SL Bots Version 1.0
• Implemented in LSL • Wander around (walking) and look for avatars • Collect information about the avatars they meet (e.g., age, proximity, name) • Interact with avatars
– Animations (50, however..) – Greeting – Spatial behavior
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Hall: Proxemics (1960s)
1. 2. 3. 4. Intimate space - < 1.5 feet Personal space 1.5-4 feet Social space 4-12 feet Public space > 12 feet
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Proxemics of interacting avatars
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Non-interacting couples
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Spatial response: An automated experiment
• Is there an equivalent for a posture shift in SL?
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Method
• Bot looked for avatars alone, stood 4 meters from them, greeted them, waited 2 seconds, and moved to a distance of 1.2 meters • Observed whether they move within 10 seconds • Automated experiment • However: needs manual supervision
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Results
“subjects” minutes observed
baseline
49
172 4:40
65 12 1.76
experiment 28
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
The online-behavior spectrum hypothesis
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Virtual Peace: Some suggestions
• Tele-socialization of physically remote people • Co-located virtual studio • Inducing empathy
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Virtual Group Discussion
• Experiment: comparing face-to-face discussions (of global warming) with a similar discussion in a virtual world • Preliminary results… • With Tomer Hendl, Amit Lavie-Dinur, and Yuval Karniel
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC
Communication Issues
• Synchronous vs Async.
– Pace is important; timely responses are important for empathy
• Video conference vs. VR/VE
– Sense of spatial presence – VR can preserve anonymity
Communication Across Borders, July 08, IDC