Human Mosaic Systems Blog

Our Virtual Self_ implications of the Avatar

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Video Link: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/virtualself.jsp

Your avatar may be just a virtual identity, but it can also affect how you are in the real world

"In this world of new media, people spend a lot of time interacting with digital versions of one another." --Jeremy Bailenson

If you spend a lot of time online, you may even have an electronic alter ego--an avatar. An avatar is a movable image that people design to represent themselves in virtual reality environments or in cyberspace.

"For some reason, I always pick really short people," says Stanford undergraduate student and avid video gamer Oliver Castaneda.

"I have multiple variations," says Michelle Del Rosario, another gamer and undergraduate student at the Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) at Stanford University. "Sometimes I choose to look like a really fun and bubbly character. Sometimes I want to look very serious."

Sounds like avatars are for fun and games but could avatars actually change us? Jeremy Bailenson thinks so. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), he created the VHIL to study, among other things, the power avatars exert on their real world masters.

"As a lab, we've gone a bit out on a limb and argued that the reason you have an avatar is because an avatar makes you more human than human. It gives you the ability to do things you could never do in the physical world. You can be 10 years younger. You can swap your gender. You can be 30 pounds heavier or lighter. Any behavior or appearance you can imagine, you can transform your avatar to embody," explains Bailenson.

Sometimes, avatars are designed to be ideal versions of their creators, and there's now evidence that the virtual reality persona begins to influence the real life persona.

"Remember, in the virtual world--height, beauty--these things are free. We've demonstrated that if I increase the height of your avatar by 10 centimeters, you'll win a negotiation compared to if I decrease the height of your avatar by 10 centimeters."

Bailenson gives another example. "I use algorithms to age a 20-year-old undergraduate's avatar and then I give that undergraduate the opportunity to save money or to spend it frivolously. The undergraduate will put more money in savings as opposed to go out and spend it on partying."

Your avatar also may affect your fitness. In another test, Del Rosario puts on a head-mounted display that reveals an avatar that looks just like her. As she runs in place, her avatar runs, too, and visibly loses weight. When Del Rosario stands still, her avatar stops, and gets fatter. As you might suspect, it is important that the avatar resemble its creator.

"So, the power comes from seeing yourself in the third person gaining and losing weight in accordance with your own physical behavior," says Bailenson. "Twenty-four hours later, people exercised more after being exposed to watching themselves run than watching someone else run."

And, as it turns out, Bailenson and colleagues say we also tend to prefer others who resemble us. The researchers reached that conclusion in 2004 when they subtly morphed students' faces with those of the presidential candidates. The students favored the hybrid candidate that included their own features.

"Even though nobody consciously detected that their own face was morphed inside the image, people whose face was morphed with Bush were more likely to vote for Bush in terms of their self-report on the survey. People whose face was morphed with Kerry indicated they'd be more likely to vote for Kerry. It's very powerful stuff," Bailenson says.

He believes avatars will soon play an even bigger role in our lives online. How we shape our own avatars and how we interact with others could have profound influences on our behavior.

"People like things that are similar to them whether it's verbally, non-verbally or an appearance. We like people that look like us," Bailenson explains. "We wanted to ask the big question in a world where I can make myself look more like you--how does that affect my ability to influence you?"

"Yeah," says Castaneda. "I think we're just beginning to explore all the potential there for, you know, re-imagining yourself in different worlds."

And the line between reality and virtual reality gets blurrier every day.

Miles O'Brien, Science Nation Correspondent
Ann Kellan, Science Nation Producer

The Predictive Power of Virtual Worlds by Dusan Writer

Virtual worlds didn’t so much predict the future as provide a giant sandbox in which to explore the different ways that the future could unfold.

In presentations, I often say that I could have learned about social media from Facebook, or user-generated content from youTube, but I ended up in Second Life instead – and by ending up there, was able to see that the future isn’t necessarily what the conventional wisdom says it will be.

I can’t imagine having any particular interest in things like on-line governance, privacy, identity, virtual commerce, law, economics, or 3D content development if it wasn’t for Second Life. By thinking about these things I started to realize that there were wider implications – that these weren’t just digital communities, these were pathfinders to a broader cultural change that might awaken us to the challenges in the way we organize our lives and enterprises.

And, through Second Life at least, we come to realize that the responsibility for how technology turns out is in large measure our own. We have the right and the obligation to lend our voice, energy and passion to whatever vision we have for the ways in which technology informs our lives, whether we view it simply as a tool or extension of who we are, as a site for culture, as platforms for enterprise and governance, or as just another gadget that we struggle to learn and adopt.

Through our often frustrating relationship to the companies who have their hands on the controls of these digital domains, we can learn that it is our personal responsibility to come to informed decisions about whether to invest our time, passion, and identity within someone else’s sandbox, or whether we prefer to strike out on our own.

We start to realize that the idea of the ‘State’ has an increasingly tenuous tie to government because we start to realize that the places where we derive value are controlled by non-state actors. As a result, we also start to rethink the nature of the enterprise and the interdependence we have on platform owners, communities, and wider ecosystems of value. Companies, schools, and organizations are no longer confined to geography or to the walls that contain them. (... More)

 

ScentScape system adds an olfactory dimension to gaming and home videos

 

http://www.gizmag.com/scentscape-system-adds-smells-to-games-and-videos/17615/    

Retailers, hotels and real estate agents have been using aromas to entice us to part with our cash for years now and there have even been a few attempts to transmit smells via the internet and mobile phones.    

California-based company  Scent Sciences is now looking to bring an olfactory dimension to computer games with its ScentScape personal digital scent delivery system.

Scent Sciences’ President and CEO, Bill Wiles, told Gizmag the ScentScape system uses a combination of hardware, software & algorithms and chemistry – all covered by patents – to produce the smells. The system consists of a unit that plugs into a PC or gaming console via USB and generates smells using scent cartridges....    Wiles says that gamers will also be able to use the company’s SDK along with the ScentEditor application to create their own scent-enabled games. Players will even be able to share the code they have created with other gamers who have their own ScentScape system to allow them to enjoy their creation. (will enable more immersion in the simulation space)

Microsoft Kinect on WoW: evolutionary steps

This post comes from Metaverse Health,  devoted to everything related to health and virtual worlds. 

" Here’s a great video showing the use of the Kinect to play World of Warcraft using a software framework called FAAST. After the initial demo there’s some useful discussion by the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies on its potential applications. Those applications are something discussed here regularly: rehabilitation and physical activity. Imagine the impact of the technology shown in the video for someone who plays a dozen or more hours of an MMO each week? Let alone someone with a chronic disease or multiple lifestyle risk factors. "       

Or returning veterans needing physical therapy. And can more cheaply create muscle memory for soldier training than PointMan can currently. ( PointMan: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/content_images/09_FA1.pdf  )

 http://www.metaversejournal.com/2011/01/02/microsoft-kinect-on-wow-evolutionary-steps/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sloz+%28The+Metaverse+Journal+-+Australia%27s+Virtual+World+News+Source%29    

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1KJAXM3xYA

http://www.ted.com Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on "external brains" (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.

In Cybertherapy, Avatars Assist With Healing

 
NY TImes article on the use of virtual worlds in psychotherapy: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/science/23avatar.html?_r=2&hp

Virtual World Learning and Training Partnership Formed

Cranial Tap joins forces with Innovative Decisions and Human Mosaic Systems to deliver comprehensive human understanding and solutions to virtual learning environments. www.prweb.com  ; http://lnkd.in/QT2g4T

Round Hill, Va., November 16, 2010 — Cranial Tap, Inc., a leading developer of virtual world solutions, announces a partnership with Innovative Decisions, Inc. and Human Mosaic Systems. The partnership will bring new capabilities and technologies to the virtual world learning, training and simulation fields.

Backed by proven cognitive decision-making technologies, students and trainees will benefit from critical thinking systems based upon dialog theory. Training no longer needs to be a series of static steps. The new partnership will offer dynamic processes that evolve to reinforce subject judgment. Training variables can dynamically change to accommodate choices made by individuals, and groups.  Simulated scenarios can be played out in endless configurations as driven by data, interactions, dialog and choices made. Virtual characters, or bots, will be programmed to interact intelligently and be capable of reason. Through these solutions, trainees will receive a realistic exposure to life situations.

Through the new partnership, a deep understanding of human psychology and social behavior will be applied to virtual learning simulations. Using scientific approaches, learning scenarios will anticipate human behavior to deliver maximum educational benefit. The introduction of the human element into complex training creates a more meaningful and rewarding learning experience for individuals and groups alike.

 Global corporations, institutions of higher learning and organizations are using virtual reality systems at an increasing rate. Virtual environments are effective in connecting dispersed team members, reducing travel costs, minimizing the need for physical space and high rates of subject matter retention. Visual learning and training environments allow individuals to experience situations without risk to human life or property.

Examples of learning and training scenarios in virtual world environments include nurse and technician training, commercial safety, group critical thinking exercises, product and facility orientation, scientific and academic research, workplace relationships and emergency preparedness.

“We are excited about this new partnership and the value it will deliver,” said Dave Levinson, President of Cranial Tap. “Organizations are seeking more effective and engaging ways to train their staff and students. This new joint relationship offers deep insight and knowledge that will take learning environments to new levels.”

Dennis Buede, President of Innovative Decisions, added “Our intelligent agent technology can dramatically improve the effectiveness of virtual training and education applications. We are enthusiastic about applying this technology, Dynamic Decision Networks, to the critical task of dramatically increasing the productivity and value of an organization’s most critical resource, its people.”

“Human Mosaic Systems is very excited to be a part of this partnership with Cranial Tap and Innovative Decisions”, said Beverly Gay McCarter, President of HMS. “The unique combination of each of our companies’ skills will help to move the field forward in realizing the incredible power and potential of 3D immersive environments, especially with regard to facilitating individual and group learning and interactions.”

About Cranial Tap, Inc.

Cranial Tap, Inc. is a leading virtual world development firm located in the metro Washington, DC area. The company supports corporations, universities and organizations around the world in the development of 3D environments embedded with productive technology solutions. With a focus on virtual learning and training solutions, the company designs and constructs highly interactive spaces with effective results. More than 500,000 people have been trained using their innovative solutions geared specifically to virtual world environments. As denoted by Linden Lab, parent of Second Life, the firms is recognized as a Gold Solution Provider. Cranial Tap’s clients include Corbis, Cognizant, AOL, 1-800-Flowers, Michigan State University College of Nursing, NIC USA, and University of Virginia. Website: cranialtap.com.

About Innovative Decisions, Inc.

IDI specializes in using analytical methods and models to bring insight and closure to decision makers. Our methods include decision and risk analysis, modeling and simulation, systems engineering, performance measurement, and facilitated group decision conferencing. Our Dynamic Decision Network technology has been implemented for dozens of applications associated with the Army’s Future Combat System. IDI’s analysts have decades of successful experience applying these methods to agencies in the Intelligence Community, the services and agencies in the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and government contractors. Website: www.innovativedecisions.com.

About Human Mosaic Systems

Human Mosaic Systems facilitates human systems through designing robust 3D immersive environments with the complex dynamics of individuals and groups, their avatars, and the virtual environment in mind. We are architects who understand how individual and group dynamics in the physical world extend into 3D immersive or virtual environments and design spaces and courses/workshops with a deep understanding of how these complex dynamics impact organizations, teams, and individuals. We can help organizational leaders develop greater understanding and abilities to help meet the new challenges facing organizations in today's fast paced complex world. Website:  www.humanmosaicsystems.com.

Contacts

 For Cranial Tap:

Nancy Ritchie
703- 879-8499
info@cranialtap.com

 

For Innovative Decisions:

Dennis Buede

703-861-3678
dbuede@innovativedecisions.com

 

For Human Mosaic Systems:

Beverly Gay McCarter

 731-431-1596
bgmccarter@hmsystems.net

 

 

A 3D virtual training scenario using programmed dialog

An Artistic Exploration of What is an Avatar by Glyph Graves

 "Antarctica- An Individual Existence" by Glyph Graves. A dynamic, live data feed piece.

Artwork Machinima link to "Antarctica - An Individual Existence"

Glyph Graves is considered one of the great artists in Second Life. In real life he is a geneticist and evolutionary biologist in Sidney Australia. ( You will find one of his interactive pieces, Organic Recurve, at my HMS site. Google him to read more about his incredible installations, including those with IBM and to see the wealth of stunning images of his many works.).

His work has won numerous awards and often finds creative ways to push narrative immersion into the conversation of the work. Glyph's and other SL artists' works drive me to find a way to take this brave new direction they are taking and incorporate it into the immersive environment of 3D simulations to help create paradigm shifts in our understanding of the world around us.

This recent unique artwork shown in the machinima linked above explores the concept of what is an avatar through the use of live feed data.

Description of the dynamic live data feed piece, "Antarctica - An Individual Existence":

Created in Second life using real time data from 19 automated weather stations in Antarctica

Antarctica .. a continent of of ice, rock and wind that for most of its frozen expanse rises above the sea as the Antarctic High Plateau around 3000 meters. This piece brings the continent into a virtual world and poses the question : What is an avatar?

The word avatar is not a new word
--noun
1. Hindu Mythology. the descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god.
2. an embodiment or personification, as of a principle, attitude, or view of life.
3. Computers. a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet.

This piece is a personification of a continent, and a fragment of its current (real time ) existence is projected into virtual in the same way that we project a fragment of ourselves into SL and call it our avatar .

It speaks as a symphony of music that is generated by the wind direction from location across its body. Its form is described by the height and position of its parts. Its skin ( the thin layer of air just above the ice) coloured by its temperature.

As this is real time the composition will change from hour to hour, day to day as the conditions at each of the 19 locations on the continent change giving a song of Antarctica.

While the discs are visible as well as touching the disc there is also a colour scale that will tell you the temperature at each site at a glance.

This piece has two phases

Phase One

The first incarnation personifies the continent ice cover as a human figure.

It stands then breaks into its component parts. Each part is a real location on Antarctica, the site of an weather station that is streaming real time data on the conditions.

Phase Two

The second incarnation transforms into separate discs and takes the last 20 readings from each of the 19 weather stations (about the last 5 hours with the last being current).

Each disc represents an automated weather station and contains a set of individual notes. The direction of the wind at that location determines which note from each set is played at each location. NB there are no sound loops rather notes are generated one at a time depending on the wind direction.

The direction of the wind is also given by the direction of the texture animation and the particle stream.

The speed of the wind is given by the speed of the texture animation and the density of the particle stream.

The temperature is signified by colour - red is the hottest and bright blue the coldest. If it goes over 0 degrees it will begin to drip.

The relative height of the discs conform to the height of the weather station.


Technical aspects and Acknowledgements

I take the data from the web, pipe it though my hosted web site and transform it into music and colour.

It uses several transformations that are facilitated via scripts that modify the primitive parameters of each unlinked prim in the piece.

For the height of the station I have used the barometric pressure in the same way it is used by an aeroplanes altimeter. Any difference due to temperature or local air pressure changes is negligible compared to the variation caused by altitude.

The data is provided by the University of Wisconsin Madison through its AWS site and I gratefully acknowledge their permission to use it.

I pull the information from that site and then pre-processed on my hosted site ( I learnt php for this project)

Each element in the piece then request the last 20 readings ( about the last 5 hours ). I use the temperature, wind speed, wind direction and barometric pressure.

All scripts (off world and inworld), sculpts and textures are my own.

The music come from sets of notes in each element. I utilise 4 instruments to create the symphony.

Ghost Blow notes created by Jovica - www.freesound.org
flute - by Lorin Tone
Chord set by Lorin Tone.
Violin notes London Philharmonic

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The Psychology of Virtual Worlds

 

Welcome to the brave new world of understanding the power of virtual worlds: not only is it a great place for learning, for collaboration, for R&D, for prototyping, and data analysis, … but,  it is also able to impact us psychologically, behaviorally, and physically.

It is a medium where we truly extend ourselves and meld into the environment. As a result, organizations that use this environment need to begin to pay special attention to the psychology of design involved with the avatars used, as well as the interactive space of the virtual world. The psychology of the avatar and our interactions with others in the space is what creates presence… that all important and elusive element that builds trust and cooperation enabling collaborative efforts that transcend time and place in this hyper connected world.

This is an area that has not been focused on in the past in research, but one which is gaining importance and attention.

One paper on this issue was recently published in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Who am I - and if so, where? A Study on Personality in Virtual Realities by Benjamin Gregor Aas, Katharina Meyerbröker, Paul M. G. Emmelkamp (http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/download/777/707 ). This paper examined the stability of personality traits in virtual worlds and found that personality traits remained stable as users entered virtual worlds.

However, another study seems to suggest that attention needs to be paid to how we design our avatars, as their results seem to suggest that how we represent ourselves in virtual worlds affects our  behavior  in our physical world. (The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134.6224&rep=rep1&type=pdf ) 

We become or behave like that which we “put on”, much like our behavior may change depending on the type of people with whom we associate. If we are affected by the behavior and life styles of friends of friends of friends (3 degrees of separation http://tinyurl.com/7fpamh ), how much more easily affected are we by stepping into an avatar that is an extension of ourselves with inherent feedback loop capability?

Another study published in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research , The Effects of Avatar Appearance in Virtual Worlds, supports this idea and points out that one’s avatar’s appearance does indeed affect our behavior. (http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/download/843/706 )

Further evidence of the mind seamlessly embracing virtual worlds and that possible feedback loop is the success and increased applications of psychological therapies in virtual worlds.   Psycho-therapy and various physical therapy treatments dealing with pain and burn patients would not be so successful in a 3D immersive environment if the mind did not reach out and immerse itself in the environment. In fact, the video “Snow Worlds” talks about how immersing the burn victim in the virtual world during therapy and bandage change is able to reduce the pain because the virtual environment is able to physically dampen the pain centers of the brain. In addition, Club One Island has done research to prove that engaging in a weight reduction and physical fitness program in a virtual environment actually leads to behavioral changes that result in weight loss.

Virtual worlds or 3D immersive environments are a powerful medium that is not a brick and mortar space that does not touch who we are. Virtual worlds are nebulous spaces that allow our minds to extend themselves as never before. The mind wants to reach out into its environment as known by any who have ever used a stick to explore a dark hole and can “feel” what the end of the stick touches. Virtual environments and the avatars that inhabit them are extensions of ourselves and we need to be mindful of this as we design these incredibly powerful spaces that are becoming more commonly used in today’s educational, organizational, and personal lives.

Much more research needs to be done in this area, and it is not one to be taken lightly.

 

Beverly Gay McCarter has her M.S. in Counseling Psychology and Human Systems, her M.F.A. in Fine Art, and is published in the field of complex systems.  Working in virtual environments, she focuses on the psychology of creating the avatar and designing virtual environments.

Additional Resources:

• Online Therapy Institute's Trainings Receive BACP Endorsement! - http://shar.es/0PMV8
• New research on use of online resources by male adult survivors of abuse - http://shar.es/0PMTq
• Info about impact of avatar on individual  http://www.onlinetherapyinstitute.com/second-life/
• Coming Home _ Veteran’s Healing Space: www.cominghomecenter.org
• Telehealth and Technology_Psychological applications: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqr_BygETSs
• Not a Game: Inside Virtual Iraq  (READ THE STORY: http://tinyurl.com/5npux5)    Some scenarios from Virtual Iraq, a virtual-reality simulation used to treat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Virtual Iraq is adapted from the video game Full Spectrum Warrior. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6kl2BuhKmM
• Snow Worlds – pain management through immersion in virtual worlds; Article and video: http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/11/snow-world-virtual-reality-used-to-treat-burn-patients.
• Club One Island Weight Loss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswlXujVUxk .  Club One Island is a virtual health world focused on changing behavior to improve lives. Club One Island combines cognitive behavioral, gaming and social-networking elements with a rich sensory experience for the greatest impact on personal habits. Club One Island is the first of many immersive digital environments from Club One, one of the premier fitness club networks in California. Learn more about Club One Island at www.cluboneisland.com or Facebook.com/cluboneisland .

Quantum Mechanics and the Stock Market and more….

 ( http://tinyurl.com/2vowroy)

There has been a flurry of posts relating to quantum mechanics that in light of the stock market plunge in May of 2010 (How one automated trade led to stock market flash crash http://business.newsplurk.com/2010/10/how-one-automated-trade-led-to-stock.html ) give pause to examine closer.

Thomas McCabe in a recent post with the Kurzweil blog (When The Speed Of Light Is Too Slow: Trading at the Edge http://pulsene.ws/jnFI ) talks about the problem with latency issues in today’s high speed trades and the desire to maximize profits that is driving the search for ways to enable even faster trades. Over the last few years traders have been building automated high-frequency trading (HFT) systems that compete by making thousands of trades a minute to maximize profit. However, high density areas slow down the computer’s ability to send and receive information. One option talked about in this article is placing computers further away from populated areas, and more in the middle of the path between major trade markets. That would put a computer in the middle of the Atlantic to optimize the London to NY market path.

Another published report describes how quantum computers are closer to being a reality (Quantum computers a step closer to reality thanks to new finding http://pulsene.ws/iUxC ) with great implications for encryption as well as the ability to handle quickly the large and complex innundation of information today.

And finally, the article/interview with Seth Lloyd of MIT published in CBC News that addresses the newly discovered quantum mechanics principles at play with animals and plants. (Quantum 'weirdness' used by plants, animals http://ow.ly/39ccO ) Imagine tapping into the entanglement phenomenon to understand what is happening in a distant place to trigger a response on your part, or the ability to navigate a complex morass of information and clearly see the path that will get you to where you need to be…

Amazing! The implications of this go well beyond the stock market, and may foretell a host of future problems, too….

** NOTE: Explanation of Quantum Entanglement and how it would relate to our personal lives: Everyday Entanglement - Science News http://bit.ly/baEgdV