Is This Seat Taken? Behavioural Analysis of the Telethrone: A Novel Situated Telepresence Display

Abstract

We present research with two novel components; a system which may improve current small group telecommunication, and an experiment to test the efficacy. Telethrone projects a remote user onto a chair, bringing them into your space. The chair acts as a situated display which can support multi party head gaze, eye gaze, and body torque such that each observer knows where the projected user is looking. It is simpler to implement and cheaper than current systems. Our primary contribution is a counterbalanced repeated measures experiment to analyse gaze interactions. We analyse the multiple independent viewpoint support offered by the system to test if it demonstrates advantage over a set-up which shows a single view to both observers; in this results are inconclusive. Self-report questionnaire data suggests that the current implementation still gives the impression of being a display despite its situated nature although participants did feel the remote user was in the space with them. Results from the eye gaze analysis suggest that the remote user is not excluded from three way poker game-play.