Dr. Kangsoo Kim – Publications

@inproceedings{Choudhary2020vbh,

title = {Virtual Big Heads: Analysis of Human Perception and Comfort of Head Scales in Social Virtual Reality},

author = {Zubin Choudhary and Kangsoo Kim and Ryan Schubert and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/IEEEVR2020_BigHead.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14289nufYf0, YouTube Presentation},

doi = {10.1109/VR46266.2020.00-41},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-03-23},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR)},

pages = {425-433},

address = {Atlanta, Georgia},

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@inproceedings{Erickson2020,

title = {Effects of Dark Mode Graphics on Visual Acuity and Fatigue with Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Displays},

author = {Austin Erickson and Kangsoo Kim and Gerd Bruder and Greg Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/VR2020_DarkMode2_0.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wePUk0xTLA0&t=5s, YouTube Presentation},

doi = {10.1109/VR46266.2020.00-40},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-03-23},

urldate = {2020-03-23},

booktitle = {Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR)},

pages = {434-442},

address = {Atlanta, Georgia},

abstract = {Current virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) are characterized by a low angular resolution that makes it difficult to make out details, leading to reduced legibility of text and increased visual fatigue. Light-on-dark graphics modes, so-called ``dark mode'' graphics, are becoming more and more popular over a wide range of display technologies, and have been correlated with increased visual comfort and acuity, specifically when working in low-light environments, which suggests that they might provide significant advantages for VR HMDs. 

In this paper, we present a human-subject study investigating the correlations between the color mode and the ambient lighting with respect to visual acuity and fatigue on VR HMDs.

  We compare two color schemes, characterized by light letters on a dark background (dark mode), or dark letters on a light background (light mode), and show that the dark background in dark mode provides a significant advantage in terms of reduced visual fatigue and increased visual acuity in dim virtual environments on current HMDs. Based on our results, we discuss guidelines for user interfaces and applications.},

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@inproceedings{Kim2019epc,

title = {Effects of Patient Care Assistant Embodiment and Computer Mediation on User Experience},

author = {Kangsoo Kim and Nahal Norouzi and Tiffany Losekamp and Gerd Bruder and Mindi Anderson and Gregory Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AIVR2019_Caregiver.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/AIVR46125.2019.00013},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-12-09},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality (AIVR)},

pages = {17-24},

publisher = {IEEE},

abstract = {Providers of patient care environments are facing an increasing demand for technological solutions that can facilitate increased patient satisfaction while being cost effective and practically feasible. Recent developments with respect to smart hospital room setups and smart home care environments have an immense potential to leverage advances in technologies such as Intelligent Virtual Agents, Internet of Things devices, and Augmented Reality to enable novel forms of patient interaction with caregivers and their environment.

In this paper, we present a human-subjects study in which we compared four types of simulated patient care environments for a range of typical tasks. In particular, we tested two forms of caregiver mediation with a real person or a virtual agent, and we compared two forms of caregiver embodiment with disembodied verbal or embodied interaction. Our results show that, as expected, a real caregiver provides the optimal user experience but an embodied virtual assistant is also a viable option for patient care environments, providing significantly higher social presence and engagement than voice-only interaction. We discuss the implications in the field of patient care and digital assistant.},

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@inproceedings{Erickson2019iic,

title = {Is It Cold in Here or Is It Just Me? Analysis of Augmented Reality Temperature Visualization for Computer-Mediated Thermoception},

author = {Austin Erickson and Ryan Schubert and Kangsoo Kim and Gerd Bruder and Greg Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Erickson2019IIC.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/ISMAR.2019.00046},

isbn = {978-1-7281-4765-9},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-10-19},

urldate = {2019-10-19},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR)},

pages = {319-327},

publisher = {IEEE},

abstract = {Modern augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays comprise a multitude of sensors that allow them to sense the environment around them. We have extended these capabilities by mounting two heat-wavelength infrared cameras to a Microsoft HoloLens, facilitating the acquisition of thermal data and enabling stereoscopic thermal overlays in the user’s augmented view. The ability to visualize live thermal information opens several avenues of investigation on how that thermal awareness may affect a user’s thermoception. We present a human-subject study, in which we simulated different temperature shifts using either heat vision overlays or 3D AR virtual effects associated with thermal cause-effect relationships (e.g., flames burn and ice cools). We further investigated differences in estimated temperatures when the stimuli were applied to either the user’s body or their environment. Our analysis showed significant effects and first trends for the AR virtual effects and heat vision, respectively, on participants’ temperature estimates for their body and the environment though with different strengths and characteristics, which we discuss in this paper. },

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@inproceedings{Richards2019b,

title = {Analysis of Peripheral Vision and Vibrotactile Feedback During Proximal Search Tasks with Dynamic Virtual Entities in Augmented Reality},

author = {Kendra Richards and Nikhil Mahalanobis and Kangsoo Kim and Ryan Schubert and Myungho Lee and Salam Daher and Nahal Norouzi and Jason Hochreiter and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Richards2019b.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3357251.3357585},

isbn = {978-1-4503-6975-6/19/10},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-10-19},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI)},

pages = {3:1-3:9},

publisher = {ACM},

abstract = {A primary goal of augmented reality (AR) is to seamlessly embed virtual content into a real environment. There are many factors that can affect the perceived physicality and co-presence of virtual entities, including the hardware capabilities, the fidelity of the virtual behaviors, and sensory feedback associated with the interactions. In this paper, we present a study investigating participants' perceptions and behaviors during a time-limited search task in close proximity with virtual entities in AR. In particular, we analyze the effects of (i) visual conflicts in the periphery of an optical see-through head-mounted display, a Microsoft HoloLens, (ii) overall lighting in the physical environment, and (iii) multimodal feedback based on vibrotactile transducers mounted on a physical platform. Our results show significant benefits of vibrotactile feedback and reduced peripheral lighting for spatial and social presence, and engagement. We discuss implications of these effects for AR applications.},

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@inproceedings{Norouzi2019esg,

title = {Effects of Shared Gaze Parameters on Visual Target Identification Task Performance in Augmented Reality},

author = {Nahal Norouzi and Austin Erickson and Kangsoo Kim and Ryan Schubert and Joseph J. LaViola Jr. and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/a12-norouzi.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3357251.3357587},

isbn = {978-1-4503-6975-6/19/10},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-10-19},

urldate = {2019-10-19},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI)},

pages = {12:1-12:11},

publisher = {ACM},

abstract = {Augmented reality (AR) technologies provide a shared platform for users to collaborate in a physical context involving both real and virtual content. To enhance the quality of interaction between AR users, researchers have proposed augmenting users' interpersonal space with embodied cues such as their gaze direction. While beneficial in achieving improved interpersonal spatial communication, such shared gaze environments suffer from multiple types of errors related to eye tracking and networking, that can reduce objective performance and subjective experience.

In this paper, we conducted a human-subject study to understand the impact of accuracy, precision, latency, and dropout based errors on users' performance when using shared gaze cues to identify a target among a crowd of people. We simulated varying amounts of errors and the target distances and measured participants' objective performance through their response time and error rate, and their subjective experience and cognitive load through questionnaires. We found some significant differences suggesting that the simulated error levels had stronger effects on participants' performance than target distance with accuracy and latency having a high impact on participants' error rate. We also observed that participants assessed their own performance as lower than it objectively was, and we discuss implications for practical shared gaze applications.},

note = {Best Paper Award},

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@inproceedings{Kim2019edm,

title = {Effects of Dark Mode on Visual Fatigue and Acuity in Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Displays},

author = {Kangsoo Kim and Austin Erickson and Alexis Lambert and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Kim2019edm.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3357251.3357584},

isbn = {978-1-4503-6975-6/19/10},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-10-19},

urldate = {2019-10-19},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI)},

pages = {9:1-9:9},

publisher = {ACM},

abstract = {Light-on-dark color schemes, so-called "Dark Mode," are becoming more and more popular over a wide range of display technologies and application fields. Many people who have to look at computer screens for hours at a time, such as computer programmers and computer graphics artists, indicate a preference for switching colors on a computer screen from dark text on a light background to light text on a dark background due to perceived advantages related to visual comfort and acuity, specifically when working in low-light environments.

In this paper, we investigate the effects of dark mode color schemes in the field of optical see-through head-mounted displays (OST-HMDs), where the characteristic "additive" light model implies that bright graphics are visible but dark graphics are transparent. We describe a human-subject study in which we evaluated a normal and inverted color mode in front of different physical backgrounds and among different lighting conditions. Our results show that dark mode graphics on OST-HMDs have significant benefits for visual acuity, fatigue, and usability, while user preferences depend largely on the lighting in the physical environment. We discuss the implications of these effects on user interfaces and applications.},

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@inproceedings{Norouzi2019cb,

title = {Walking Your Virtual Dog: Analysis of Awareness and Proxemics with Simulated Support Animals in Augmented Reality },

author = {Nahal Norouzi and Kangsoo Kim and Myungho Lee and Ryan Schubert and Austin Erickson and Jeremy Bailenson and Gerd Bruder and Greg Welch

},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Final__AR_Animal_ISMAR.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/ISMAR.2019.00040},

isbn = {978-1-7281-4765-9},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-10-16},

urldate = {2019-10-16},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), 2019},

pages = {253-264},

publisher = {IEEE},

abstract = {Domestic animals have a long history of enriching human lives physically and mentally by filling a variety of different roles, such as service animals, emotional support animals, companions, and pets. Despite this, technological realizations of such animals in augmented reality (AR) are largely underexplored in terms of their behavior and interactions as well as effects they might have on human users' perception or behavior. In this paper, we describe a simulated virtual companion animal, in the form of a dog, in a shared AR space. We investigated its effects on participants' perception and behavior, including locomotion related to proxemics, with respect to their AR dog and other real people in the environment. We conducted a 2 by 2 mixed factorial human-subject study, in which we varied (i) the AR dog's awareness and behavior with respect to other people in the physical environment and (ii) the awareness and behavior of those people with respect to the AR dog. Our results show that having an AR companion dog changes participants' locomotion behavior, proxemics, and social interaction with other people who can or can not see the AR dog. We also show that the AR dog's simulated awareness and behaviors have an impact on participants' perception, including co-presence, animalism, perceived physicality, and dog's perceived awareness of the participant and environment. We discuss our findings and present insights and implications for the realization of effective AR animal companions.},

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@inproceedings{Kim2018c,

title = {Blowing in the Wind: Increasing Copresence with a Virtual Human via Airflow Influence in Augmented Reality},

author = {Kangsoo Kim and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Kim_Airflow_ICAT_EGVE2018.pdf},

doi = {10.2312/egve.20181332},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-11-07},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence and Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments (ICAT-EGVE 2018), Limassol, Cyprus, November 7–9, 2018},

pages = {183-190},

abstract = {In a social context where two or more interlocutors interact with each other in the same space, one's sense of copresence with the others is an important factor for the quality of communication and engagement in the interaction. Although augmented reality (AR) technology enables the superposition of virtual humans (VHs) as interlocutors in the real world, the resulting sense of copresence is usually far lower than with a real human interlocutor.

In this paper, we describe a human-subject study in which we explored and investigated the effects that subtle multi-modal interaction between the virtual environment and the real world, where a VH and human participants were co-located, can have on copresence. We compared two levels of gradually increased multi-modal interaction: (i) virtual objects being affected by real airflow as commonly experienced with fans in summer, and (ii) a VH showing awareness of this airflow. We chose airflow as one example of an environmental factor that can noticeably affect both the real and virtual worlds, and also cause subtle responses in interlocutors. We hypothesized that our two levels of treatment would increase the sense of being together with the VH gradually, i.e., participants would report higher copresence with airflow influence than without it, and the copresence would be even higher when the VH shows awareness of the airflow. The statistical analysis with the participant-reported copresence scores showed that there was an improvement of the perceived copresence with the VH when both the physical–virtual interactivity via airflow and the VH's awareness behaviors were present together. As the considered environmental factors are directed at the VH, i.e., they are not part of the direct interaction with the real human, they can provide a reasonably generalizable approach to support copresence in AR beyond the particular use case in the present experiment.},

note = {Honorable Mention Award},

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@inproceedings{Norouzi2018c,

title = {A Systematic Survey of 15 Years of User Studies Published in the Intelligent Virtual Agents Conference},

author = {Nahal Norouzi and Kangsoo Kim and Jason Hochreiter and Myungho Lee and Salam Daher and Gerd Bruder and Gregory Welch },

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/p17-norouzi-2.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3267851.3267901},

isbn = {978-1-4503-6013-5/18/11},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-11-05},

booktitle = {IVA '18 Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents},

pages = {17-22},

publisher = {ACM},

organization = {ACM},

abstract = {The field of intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) has evolved immensely over the past 15 years, introducing new application opportunities in areas such as training, health care, and virtual assistants. In this survey paper, we provide a systematic review of the most influential user studies published in the IVA conference from 2001 to 2015 focusing on IVA development, human perception, and interactions. A total of 247 papers with 276 user studies have been classified and reviewed based on their contributions and impact. We identify the different areas of research and provide a summary of the papers with the highest impact. With the trends of past user studies and the current state of technology, we provide insights into future trends and research challenges.},

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@inproceedings{Haesler2018,

title = {[POSTER] Seeing is Believing: Improving the Perceived Trust in Visually Embodied Alexa in Augmented Reality},

author = {Steffen Haesler and Kangsoo Kim and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Haesler2018.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct.2018.00067},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-10-16},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2018), Munich, Germany, October 16–20, 2018},

abstract = {Voice-activated Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) such as Amazon Alexa offer a natural and realistic form of interaction that pursues the level of social interaction among real humans. The user experience with such technologies depends to a large degree on the perceived trust in and reliability of the IVA. In this poster, we explore the effects of a three-dimensional embodied representation of Amazon Alexa in Augmented Reality (AR) on the user’s perceived trust in her being able to control Internet of Things (IoT) devices in a smart home environment. We present a preliminary study and discuss the potential of positive effects in perceived trust due to the embodied representation compared to a voice-only condition.},

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@inproceedings{Kim2018a,

title = {Does a Digital Assistant Need a Body? The Influence of Visual Embodiment and Social Behavior on the Perception of Intelligent Virtual Agents in AR},

author = {Kangsoo Kim and Luke Boelling and Steffen Haesler and Jeremy N. Bailenson and Gerd Bruder and Gregory F. Welch},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Kim2018a.pdf},

doi = {10.1109/ISMAR.2018.00039},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-10-16},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2018), Munich, Germany, October 16–20, 2018},

abstract = {Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) are becoming part of our everyday life, thanks to artificial intelligence technology and Internet of Things devices. For example, users can control their connected home appliances through natural voice commands to the IVA. However, most current-state commercial IVAs, such as Amazon Alexa, mainly focus on voice commands and voice feedback, and lack the ability to provide non-verbal cues which are an important part of social interaction. Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to overcome this challenge by providing a visual embodiment of the IVA.

In this paper we investigate how visual embodiment and social behaviors influence the perception of the IVA. We hypothesize that a user's confidence in an IVA's ability to perform tasks is improved when imbuing the agent with a human body and social behaviors compared to the agent solely depending on voice feedback. In other words, an agent's embodied gesture and locomotion behavior exhibiting awareness of the surrounding real world or exerting influence over the environment can improve the perceived social presence with and confidence in the agent. We present a human-subject study, in which we evaluated the hypothesis and compared different forms of IVAs with speech, gesturing, and locomotion behaviors in an interactive AR scenario. The results show support for the hypothesis with measures of confidence, trust, and social presence. We discuss implications for future developments in the field of IVAs.},

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@inproceedings{Kim2018,

title = {Improving Social Presence with a Virtual Human via Multimodal Physical–Virtual Interactivity in AR},

author = {Kangsoo Kim},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Kim2018.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3170427.3180291},

isbn = {978-1-4503-5621-3},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-04-26},

urldate = {2018-05-11},

booktitle = {Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montreal QC, Canada — April 21 - 26, 2018 },

number = {SRC09},

pages = {SRC09:1--SRC09:6},

publisher = {ACM},

address = {New York, NY, USA},

series = {CHI EA '18},

abstract = {In a social context where a real human interacts with a virtual human (VH) in the same space, one's sense of social/co-presence with the VH is an important factor for the quality of interaction and the VH's social influence to the human user in context. Although augmented reality (AR) enables the superposition of VHs in the real world, the resulting sense of social/co-presence is usually far lower than with a real human. In this paper, we introduce a research approach employing multimodal interactivity between the virtual environment and the physical world, where a VH and a human user are co-located, to improve the social/co-presence with the VH. A preliminary study suggests a promising effect on the sense of copresence with a VH when a subtle airflow from a real fan can blow a virtual paper and curtains next to the VH as a physical–virtual interactivity. Our approach can be generalized to support social/co-presence with any virtual contents in AR beyond the particular VH scenarios.},

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@inproceedings{Jo2017,

title = {[POSTER] The Impact of Avatar-owner Visual Similarity on Body Ownership in Immersive Virtual Reality},

author = {Dongsik Jo and Kangsoo Kim and Gregory F. Welch and Woojin Jeon and Yongwan Kim and Ki-Hong Kim and Gerard Jounghyun Kim},

url = {https://sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Jo2017.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3139131.3141214},

isbn = {978-1-4503-5548-3},

year  = {2017},

date = {2017-11-08},

booktitle = {Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology},

pages = {77:1--77:2},

publisher = {ACM},

address = {Gothenburg, Sweden},

series = {VRST '17},

abstract = {In this paper we report on an investigation of the effects of a self-avatar's visual similarity to a user's actual appearance, on their perceptions of the avatar in an immersive virtual reality (IVR) experience. We conducted a user study to examine the participant's sense of body ownership, presence and visual realism under three levels of avatar-owner visual similarity: (L1) an avatar reconstructed from real imagery of the participant's appearance, (L2) a cartoon-like virtual avatar created by a 3D artist for each participant, where the avatar shoes and clothing mimic that of the participant, but using a low-fidelity model, and (L3) a cartoon-like virtual avatar with a pre-defined appearance for the shoes and clothing. Surprisingly, the results indicate that the participants generally exhibited the highest sense of body ownership and presence when inhabiting the cartoon-like virtual avatar mimicking the outfit of the participant (L2), despite the relatively low participant similarity. We present our experiment and main findings, also, discuss the potential impact of a self-avatar's visual differences on human perceptions in IVR.},

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