From Michael Chang, the guy who brought true scal­able type to Processing, comes a demo reel of data vis inter­ac­tion inspi­ra­tion. In my own work, I’ve focused on just “get­ting it to work” and dis­play the data, but now I want to make sure the whole expe­ri­ence is as beau­ti­ful and fluid as in Chang’s work.

Image from Flickr by Torley

I attended a cap­ti­vat­ing talk last night by Jeremy Bailenson, direc­tor of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Their research focuses on manip­u­lat­ing social inter­ac­tions in vir­tual envi­ron­ments, thereby test­ing sub­jects’ reac­tions to sit­u­a­tions that could not occur in phys­i­cal real­ity. For exam­ple, in vir­tual real­ity, my avatar could be made to main­tain eye con­tact with yours at all times, even though in phys­i­cal real­ity, I am avoid­ing eye con­tact. Creepy, right?

I highly rec­om­mend watch­ing the lab tour video, but if you don’t have time, here are some of their most inter­est­ing find­ings he presented:

• Although con­stant eye con­tact makes sub­jects extremely uncom­fort­able, the result is greater engage­ment and increased learn­ing. This has sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions for teach­ing via VR envi­ron­ments. Imagine if each stu­dent per­ceived that the teacher’s avatar is look­ing at them.

• When study par­tic­i­pants’ avatars were made to be 10 inches taller than their co-participants, they felt more con­fi­dent and were always more able to con­vince the “shorter” per­son of a cer­tain point of view. Same goes for more attrac­tive vs. less attrac­tive avatars. Also, the con­fi­dence that appeared in users with taller or more attrac­tive avatars was main­tained out­side of the vir­tual envi­ron­ment for at least an hour. (No lon­gi­tu­di­nal stud­ies have been done yet, but maybe repeated expo­sures to tall, attrac­tive, vir­tual selves could increase feel­ings of self-confidence. VR is already being used to treat var­i­ous pho­bias, like the fear of fly­ing, but per­haps it could be extended for more gen­eral treat­ments of men­tal health.)

• There are almost no obese avatars in Second Life, where prej­u­dice against obe­sity is as preva­lent as in real­ity. Subjects who spent 10 hours a week using Second Life with obese avatars did not enjoy it, and their decreased self-esteem actu­ally extended beyond the game and into their real lives to a degree unex­pected (and unde­sired) by the researchers.

• Similarly, play­ers in World of Warcraft advance more quickly in the game if their avatars are tall and “attrac­tive,” even with all char­ac­ter skills being equal. Short, “ugly” char­ac­ters progress more slowly.

• The lab has devel­oped soft­ware that can track facial expres­sions using a reg­u­lar web cam and relay that infor­ma­tion to remote par­tic­i­pants. Imagine video chat, but with a 3D on-screen avatar whose face mim­ics your actual facial expres­sions. (Watch the video. It’s eerily well-done.)

Side note: The talk was free, and pre­sented by Café Scientifique at SRI. There are lots of local “Café Sci” groups all over the world. Check out their web­site to find a local group and tons of inter­est­ing speak­ers. The SF group, for exam­ple, has an upcom­ing talk on “How Computers Look at Art.”

Also, if you’re in the Bay Area, note that SRI is also pre­sent­ing a sort of Doug Engelbart ret­ro­spec­tive in December.