Catherine Zanbaka | Clemson University (original) (raw)
Papers by Catherine Zanbaka
Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does... more Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does this affect future interface designers? We replicated classical tests of social influence known as the social facilitation and inhibition effects. Social facilitation/inhibition theory states that when in the presence of others, people perform simple tasks better and complex tasks worse. Participants were randomly assigned to perform both simple and complex tasks alone and in the presence of either a real human, a projected virtual human, or a virtual human in a headmounted display. Our results showed participants were inhibited by the presence of others, whether real or virtual. That is, participants performed worse on the complex task, both in terms of percent correct and reaction times, when in the presence of others than when alone. Social facilitation did not occur with the real or virtual human. We discuss these results and their implications for future interface designers. Author...
The Future Computing Lab of UNC Charlotte supports research and teaching in a broad range of fiel... more The Future Computing Lab of UNC Charlotte supports research and teaching in a broad range of fields, including Computer Graphics, Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interaction, Image Processing, and Computer Vision. This document is distributed as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be
This study examines the roles of gender and visual realism in the persuasiveness of speakers. Par... more This study examines the roles of gender and visual realism in the persuasiveness of speakers. Participants were presented with a persuasive passage delivered by a male or female person, virtual human, or virtual character. They were then assessed on attitude change and their ratings of the argument, message, and speaker. The results indicated that the virtual speakers were as effective at changing attitudes as real people. Male participants were more persuaded when the speaker was female than when the speaker was male, whereas female participants were more persuaded when the speaker was male than when the speaker was female. Cross gender interactions occurred across all conditions, suggesting that some of the gender stereotypes that occur with people may carry over to interaction with virtual characters. Ratings of the perceptions of the speaker were more favorable for virtual speakers than for human speakers. We discuss the application of these findings in the design of persuasive ...
We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality train... more We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality training tool for nursing students. Our system allows a nurse to verbally interview, observe, and examine a digital patient in a way similar to how one would interact with a real patient. In this paper, we describe the details of the system and report on a preliminary feasibility study performed with a group of six student nurses. Each participant interacted with a DP afflicted with chicken pox. After their sessions with the DP, the participants answered a series of questionnaires and a short interview to determine their evaluation of the DP as a useful training tool. All the participants were able to successfully interview the DP and produce an initial assessment of their condition. We found that the nursing students thought the DP would be a helpful system for gaining practical experience in interaction with patients. Further research will focus on improving the system’s communication, expa...
To avoid the “file drawer effect” of unreported null results, we report on an experimental study ... more To avoid the “file drawer effect” of unreported null results, we report on an experimental study in assessing humanvirtual human interaction. In this study, participants were asked to spend about ten minutes with a projected lifesized virtual human. The virtual human interacted with the participants by speaking to them and exhibited three different tones of voice and facial expressions corresponding to a happy, sleepy, or grumpy personality. The virtual human asked participants to help her with a visual memory task where they responded, via keyboard, to a series of question sets about various pictures. We hypothesized that the virtual human’s personality will have an effect on the amount of time participants are willing to help the virtual human on a task. In the results of our preliminary experiment, the personality of the virtual human had no effect on interaction time. First, we summarize the study and results, next we discuss some of the probable causes of our results, and final...
Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand con... more Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand consistent, nuanced, and realistic behavior that is integrated in the surrounding environment. We introduce the concept of Supporting Character Realism (SCR) for virtual avatars by identifying the capabilities of agents which have the ability to work in tandem with traditional “main character realism” approaches by demonstrating consistent and nuanced behaviors that blend into the surrounding background environment. Next, we propose several metrics for evaluating agents attempting to achieve this level of realism and test our proposed metrics in a social interaction experiment set in a virtual bar amidst a variety of human and computer controlled patrons. Finally, we employ these metrics to measure the SCR performance of traditional scripted bots and prototype AI-driven agents. Our results show that SCR is not only a distinguishable and measurable metric of agent realism, but also a technic...
Do people respond to a virtual human in the same way they would to a real human? To answer this q... more Do people respond to a virtual human in the same way they would to a real human? To answer this question, we designed a study which replicates a classical test of human-human social interaction. Particularly, we chose to replicate the social facilitation/social inhibition effects. Social facilitation/inhibition theory simply states that when in the presence of others, people perform learned tasks better and novel tasks worse. Participants first learned a task and were then randomly assigned to perform the same task or a novel task either alone, in the presence of a real human, or in the presence of a virtual human. Our results showed that people reacted to the virtual human similarly to the way they reacted to the real human. In particular, female participants performing in the presence of the virtual human demonstrated the social inhibition effect. We also found that more women learned the novel task when alone than when being observed by either a human or a virtual human.
Understanding Complex Systems, 2019
PMRFSim is a proof of concept geospatial social agent-based simulation capable of examining the i... more PMRFSim is a proof of concept geospatial social agent-based simulation capable of examining the interactions of more than 60,000 agents over a simulated year within a few minutes. PMRFSim utilizes real world data from federal, state, and local authorities to create the heterogeneous agent environment. All agents are endowed with demographic and geospatial attributes. Agents interact with each other and respond to events. PMRFSim also models adverse agents which have harmful intent and goals to spread negative sentiment and acquire intelligence. PMRFSim allows an analyst to construct various what-if scenarios and generates numerous graphs that characterize the social landscape. This analysis is intended to support public affairs officers in exploring the social landscape under various initial conditions and scenarios.
A fundamental problem in optical, see-through augmented reality (AR) is characterizing how it aff... more A fundamental problem in optical, see-through augmented reality (AR) is characterizing how it affects human depth perception. This problem is important, because AR system developers need to both place graphics in arbitrary spatial relationships with real-world objects, and to know that users will perceive them in the same relationships. However, achieving this is difficult, because the graphics are physically drawn directly in front of the eyes. Furthermore, AR makes possible enhanced perceptual techniques that have no real-world equivalent, such as x-ray vision , where AR users perceive that graphics are located behind opaque sur-faces. Also, to date AR depth perception research has examined near-field distances, yet many compelling AR applications oper-ate at longer distances, and human depth perception itself operates differently at medium-field and far-field distances. This paper describes the first medium- and far-field AR depth perception experiment that provides metric result...
1 Computer and Information Science and Engineering Department, University of Florida 1 Motivation... more 1 Computer and Information Science and Engineering Department, University of Florida 1 Motivation and Related Works For patients recovering from injuries, or individuals that require a system to provide feedback on aspects of exercise performance, physical therapy sessions with a professional trainer can be expensive and inconvenient. In addition, privacy might be an issue for some patients who are not comfortable closely interacting with strangers. Nonetheless, personalized feedback and monitoring of the individual’s performance on a specific exercise routine is crucial for faster rehabilitation and effective training. Moreover, improper training may even lead to injury. We present a framework that employs a Virtual Human Physiotherapist (VHP) towards personalized training and rehabilitation. The VHP is an inexpensive alternative to training with a real person. Using a virtual human for training allows the user to train on their own schedule and in the privacy of their own homes. I...
Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand con... more Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand consistent, nuanced, and realistic behavior that is integrated in the surrounding environment. Inadequate and unscalable traditional Artificial Intelligence based approaches have made it impractical to apply this level of character depth and detail to large environments. We introduce the concept of Supporting Character Realism (SCR) for virtual avatars by identifying the capabilities of agents which have the ability to work in tandem with traditional “main character realism” approaches by demonstrating consistent and nuanced behaviors that blend into the surrounding background environment. Next, we propose several metrics for evaluating agents attempting to achieve this level of realism and test our proposed metrics in a rich social interaction experiment placed in a virtual bar amidst a variety of human and computer controlled patrons. Finally, we gauge the performance of a set of both tra...
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2006
2007 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces, 2007
We developed three distinct two-handed selection techniques for volumetric data visualizations th... more We developed three distinct two-handed selection techniques for volumetric data visualizations that use splat-based rendering. Two techniques are bimanual asymmetric, where each hand has a different task. One technique is bimanual symmetric, where each hand has the same task. These techniques were then evaluated based on accuracy, completion times, TLX workload assessment, overall comfort and fatigue, ease of use, and ease of learning. Our results suggest that the bimanual asymmetric selection techniques are best used when performing gross selection for potentially long periods of time and for cognitively demanding tasks. However when optimum accuracy is needed, the bimanual symmetric technique was best for selection.
Proceedings of the 2007 ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology - VRST '07, 2007
Page 1. EXAMINING DIRECT AND INDIRECT SOCIAL INFLUENCE WITH VIRTUAL CHARACTERS by ... CATHERINE A... more Page 1. EXAMINING DIRECT AND INDIRECT SOCIAL INFLUENCE WITH VIRTUAL CHARACTERS by ... CATHERINE AMINE ZANBAKA. Examining Direct and Indirect Social Influence with Virtual Characters: The Role of Gender and Realism. (Under the direction of DR. ...
Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '07, 2007
Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does... more Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does this affect future interface designers? We replicated classical tests of social influence known as the social facilitation and inhibition effects. Social facilitation/inhibition theory states that when in the presence of others, people perform simple tasks better and complex tasks worse. Participants were randomly assigned to perform both simple and complex tasks alone and in the presence of either a real human, a projected virtual human, or a virtual human in a headmounted display. Our results showed participants were inhibited by the presence of others, whether real or virtual. That is, participants performed worse on the complex task, both in terms of percent correct and reaction times, when in the presence of others than when alone. Social facilitation did not occur with the real or virtual human. We discuss these results and their implications for future interface designers.
... Catherine Zanbaka, Amy Ulinski, Paula Goolkasian, Larry F. Hodges University of North Carolin... more ... Catherine Zanbaka, Amy Ulinski, Paula Goolkasian, Larry F. Hodges University of North Carolina at Charlotte {czanbaka, aculinsk, pagoolka, lfhodges}@uncc.edu ... The participants were taken to the testing room where they sat in a chair at a desk, facing the stimuli screen, with a ...
To avoid the "file drawer effect&quo... more To avoid the "file drawer effect" of unreported null results, we report on an experimental study in assessing human- virtual human interaction. In this study, participants were asked to spend about ten minutes with a projected life- sized virtual human. The virtual human interacted with the participants by speaking to them and exhibited three different tones of voice and facial
We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality train... more We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality training tool for nursing students. Our system allows a nurse to verbally interview, observe, and examine a digital patient in a way similar to how one would interact with a real patient. In this paper, we describe the details of the system and report on a preliminary feasibility study performed with a group of six student nurses. Each participant interacted with a DP afflicted with chicken pox. After their sessions with the DP, the participants answered a series of questionnaires and a short interview to determine their evaluation of the DP as a useful training tool. All the participants were able to successfully interview the DP and produce an initial assessment of their condition. We found that the nursing students thought the DP would be a helpful system for gaining practical experience in interaction with patients. Further research will focus on improving the system's communication, ...
IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2005 (VR'05), 2005
Augmented reality (AR) systems present a mixture of virtual and real objects. The challenge for A... more Augmented reality (AR) systems present a mixture of virtual and real objects. The challenge for AR system evaluators is how to tell whether the virtual world is effective at conveying the sense of reality. It may never be possible or even necessary to determine whether the user is truly fooled in all situations or is merely "suspending disbelief," but one can objectively measure the effectiveness of an AR environment with a task-based approach. We present the results of our first such experiment, involving low-level perceptual tasks of recognition and depth matching.
Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does... more Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does this affect future interface designers? We replicated classical tests of social influence known as the social facilitation and inhibition effects. Social facilitation/inhibition theory states that when in the presence of others, people perform simple tasks better and complex tasks worse. Participants were randomly assigned to perform both simple and complex tasks alone and in the presence of either a real human, a projected virtual human, or a virtual human in a headmounted display. Our results showed participants were inhibited by the presence of others, whether real or virtual. That is, participants performed worse on the complex task, both in terms of percent correct and reaction times, when in the presence of others than when alone. Social facilitation did not occur with the real or virtual human. We discuss these results and their implications for future interface designers. Author...
The Future Computing Lab of UNC Charlotte supports research and teaching in a broad range of fiel... more The Future Computing Lab of UNC Charlotte supports research and teaching in a broad range of fields, including Computer Graphics, Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interaction, Image Processing, and Computer Vision. This document is distributed as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be
This study examines the roles of gender and visual realism in the persuasiveness of speakers. Par... more This study examines the roles of gender and visual realism in the persuasiveness of speakers. Participants were presented with a persuasive passage delivered by a male or female person, virtual human, or virtual character. They were then assessed on attitude change and their ratings of the argument, message, and speaker. The results indicated that the virtual speakers were as effective at changing attitudes as real people. Male participants were more persuaded when the speaker was female than when the speaker was male, whereas female participants were more persuaded when the speaker was male than when the speaker was female. Cross gender interactions occurred across all conditions, suggesting that some of the gender stereotypes that occur with people may carry over to interaction with virtual characters. Ratings of the perceptions of the speaker were more favorable for virtual speakers than for human speakers. We discuss the application of these findings in the design of persuasive ...
We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality train... more We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality training tool for nursing students. Our system allows a nurse to verbally interview, observe, and examine a digital patient in a way similar to how one would interact with a real patient. In this paper, we describe the details of the system and report on a preliminary feasibility study performed with a group of six student nurses. Each participant interacted with a DP afflicted with chicken pox. After their sessions with the DP, the participants answered a series of questionnaires and a short interview to determine their evaluation of the DP as a useful training tool. All the participants were able to successfully interview the DP and produce an initial assessment of their condition. We found that the nursing students thought the DP would be a helpful system for gaining practical experience in interaction with patients. Further research will focus on improving the system’s communication, expa...
To avoid the “file drawer effect” of unreported null results, we report on an experimental study ... more To avoid the “file drawer effect” of unreported null results, we report on an experimental study in assessing humanvirtual human interaction. In this study, participants were asked to spend about ten minutes with a projected lifesized virtual human. The virtual human interacted with the participants by speaking to them and exhibited three different tones of voice and facial expressions corresponding to a happy, sleepy, or grumpy personality. The virtual human asked participants to help her with a visual memory task where they responded, via keyboard, to a series of question sets about various pictures. We hypothesized that the virtual human’s personality will have an effect on the amount of time participants are willing to help the virtual human on a task. In the results of our preliminary experiment, the personality of the virtual human had no effect on interaction time. First, we summarize the study and results, next we discuss some of the probable causes of our results, and final...
Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand con... more Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand consistent, nuanced, and realistic behavior that is integrated in the surrounding environment. We introduce the concept of Supporting Character Realism (SCR) for virtual avatars by identifying the capabilities of agents which have the ability to work in tandem with traditional “main character realism” approaches by demonstrating consistent and nuanced behaviors that blend into the surrounding background environment. Next, we propose several metrics for evaluating agents attempting to achieve this level of realism and test our proposed metrics in a social interaction experiment set in a virtual bar amidst a variety of human and computer controlled patrons. Finally, we employ these metrics to measure the SCR performance of traditional scripted bots and prototype AI-driven agents. Our results show that SCR is not only a distinguishable and measurable metric of agent realism, but also a technic...
Do people respond to a virtual human in the same way they would to a real human? To answer this q... more Do people respond to a virtual human in the same way they would to a real human? To answer this question, we designed a study which replicates a classical test of human-human social interaction. Particularly, we chose to replicate the social facilitation/social inhibition effects. Social facilitation/inhibition theory simply states that when in the presence of others, people perform learned tasks better and novel tasks worse. Participants first learned a task and were then randomly assigned to perform the same task or a novel task either alone, in the presence of a real human, or in the presence of a virtual human. Our results showed that people reacted to the virtual human similarly to the way they reacted to the real human. In particular, female participants performing in the presence of the virtual human demonstrated the social inhibition effect. We also found that more women learned the novel task when alone than when being observed by either a human or a virtual human.
Understanding Complex Systems, 2019
PMRFSim is a proof of concept geospatial social agent-based simulation capable of examining the i... more PMRFSim is a proof of concept geospatial social agent-based simulation capable of examining the interactions of more than 60,000 agents over a simulated year within a few minutes. PMRFSim utilizes real world data from federal, state, and local authorities to create the heterogeneous agent environment. All agents are endowed with demographic and geospatial attributes. Agents interact with each other and respond to events. PMRFSim also models adverse agents which have harmful intent and goals to spread negative sentiment and acquire intelligence. PMRFSim allows an analyst to construct various what-if scenarios and generates numerous graphs that characterize the social landscape. This analysis is intended to support public affairs officers in exploring the social landscape under various initial conditions and scenarios.
A fundamental problem in optical, see-through augmented reality (AR) is characterizing how it aff... more A fundamental problem in optical, see-through augmented reality (AR) is characterizing how it affects human depth perception. This problem is important, because AR system developers need to both place graphics in arbitrary spatial relationships with real-world objects, and to know that users will perceive them in the same relationships. However, achieving this is difficult, because the graphics are physically drawn directly in front of the eyes. Furthermore, AR makes possible enhanced perceptual techniques that have no real-world equivalent, such as x-ray vision , where AR users perceive that graphics are located behind opaque sur-faces. Also, to date AR depth perception research has examined near-field distances, yet many compelling AR applications oper-ate at longer distances, and human depth perception itself operates differently at medium-field and far-field distances. This paper describes the first medium- and far-field AR depth perception experiment that provides metric result...
1 Computer and Information Science and Engineering Department, University of Florida 1 Motivation... more 1 Computer and Information Science and Engineering Department, University of Florida 1 Motivation and Related Works For patients recovering from injuries, or individuals that require a system to provide feedback on aspects of exercise performance, physical therapy sessions with a professional trainer can be expensive and inconvenient. In addition, privacy might be an issue for some patients who are not comfortable closely interacting with strangers. Nonetheless, personalized feedback and monitoring of the individual’s performance on a specific exercise routine is crucial for faster rehabilitation and effective training. Moreover, improper training may even lead to injury. We present a framework that employs a Virtual Human Physiotherapist (VHP) towards personalized training and rehabilitation. The VHP is an inexpensive alternative to training with a real person. Using a virtual human for training allows the user to train on their own schedule and in the privacy of their own homes. I...
Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand con... more Convincing and compelling virtual environments that are populated with rich characters demand consistent, nuanced, and realistic behavior that is integrated in the surrounding environment. Inadequate and unscalable traditional Artificial Intelligence based approaches have made it impractical to apply this level of character depth and detail to large environments. We introduce the concept of Supporting Character Realism (SCR) for virtual avatars by identifying the capabilities of agents which have the ability to work in tandem with traditional “main character realism” approaches by demonstrating consistent and nuanced behaviors that blend into the surrounding background environment. Next, we propose several metrics for evaluating agents attempting to achieve this level of realism and test our proposed metrics in a rich social interaction experiment placed in a virtual bar amidst a variety of human and computer controlled patrons. Finally, we gauge the performance of a set of both tra...
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2006
2007 IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces, 2007
We developed three distinct two-handed selection techniques for volumetric data visualizations th... more We developed three distinct two-handed selection techniques for volumetric data visualizations that use splat-based rendering. Two techniques are bimanual asymmetric, where each hand has a different task. One technique is bimanual symmetric, where each hand has the same task. These techniques were then evaluated based on accuracy, completion times, TLX workload assessment, overall comfort and fatigue, ease of use, and ease of learning. Our results suggest that the bimanual asymmetric selection techniques are best used when performing gross selection for potentially long periods of time and for cognitively demanding tasks. However when optimum accuracy is needed, the bimanual symmetric technique was best for selection.
Proceedings of the 2007 ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology - VRST '07, 2007
Page 1. EXAMINING DIRECT AND INDIRECT SOCIAL INFLUENCE WITH VIRTUAL CHARACTERS by ... CATHERINE A... more Page 1. EXAMINING DIRECT AND INDIRECT SOCIAL INFLUENCE WITH VIRTUAL CHARACTERS by ... CATHERINE AMINE ZANBAKA. Examining Direct and Indirect Social Influence with Virtual Characters: The Role of Gender and Realism. (Under the direction of DR. ...
Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '07, 2007
Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does... more Do human-human social interactions carry over to humanvirtual human social interactions? How does this affect future interface designers? We replicated classical tests of social influence known as the social facilitation and inhibition effects. Social facilitation/inhibition theory states that when in the presence of others, people perform simple tasks better and complex tasks worse. Participants were randomly assigned to perform both simple and complex tasks alone and in the presence of either a real human, a projected virtual human, or a virtual human in a headmounted display. Our results showed participants were inhibited by the presence of others, whether real or virtual. That is, participants performed worse on the complex task, both in terms of percent correct and reaction times, when in the presence of others than when alone. Social facilitation did not occur with the real or virtual human. We discuss these results and their implications for future interface designers.
... Catherine Zanbaka, Amy Ulinski, Paula Goolkasian, Larry F. Hodges University of North Carolin... more ... Catherine Zanbaka, Amy Ulinski, Paula Goolkasian, Larry F. Hodges University of North Carolina at Charlotte {czanbaka, aculinsk, pagoolka, lfhodges}@uncc.edu ... The participants were taken to the testing room where they sat in a chair at a desk, facing the stimuli screen, with a ...
To avoid the "file drawer effect&quo... more To avoid the "file drawer effect" of unreported null results, we report on an experimental study in assessing human- virtual human interaction. In this study, participants were asked to spend about ten minutes with a projected life- sized virtual human. The virtual human interacted with the participants by speaking to them and exhibited three different tones of voice and facial
We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality train... more We present a prototype of a Digital Patient (DP) to serve as an interactive virtual reality training tool for nursing students. Our system allows a nurse to verbally interview, observe, and examine a digital patient in a way similar to how one would interact with a real patient. In this paper, we describe the details of the system and report on a preliminary feasibility study performed with a group of six student nurses. Each participant interacted with a DP afflicted with chicken pox. After their sessions with the DP, the participants answered a series of questionnaires and a short interview to determine their evaluation of the DP as a useful training tool. All the participants were able to successfully interview the DP and produce an initial assessment of their condition. We found that the nursing students thought the DP would be a helpful system for gaining practical experience in interaction with patients. Further research will focus on improving the system's communication, ...
IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2005 (VR'05), 2005
Augmented reality (AR) systems present a mixture of virtual and real objects. The challenge for A... more Augmented reality (AR) systems present a mixture of virtual and real objects. The challenge for AR system evaluators is how to tell whether the virtual world is effective at conveying the sense of reality. It may never be possible or even necessary to determine whether the user is truly fooled in all situations or is merely "suspending disbelief," but one can objectively measure the effectiveness of an AR environment with a task-based approach. We present the results of our first such experiment, involving low-level perceptual tasks of recognition and depth matching.