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A Preliminary Study on Eye Contact Framework Toward Improving Gaze Awareness in Video Conferences

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Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14011))

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Abstract

Gaze information plays an important role as non-verbal information in face-to-face conversations. However, in online videoconferences, users’ gaze is perceived as misaligned due to the different positions of the screen and the camera. This problem causes a lack of gaze information, such as gaze awareness. To solve this problem, gaze correction methods in videoconference have been extensively discussed, and these methods allow us to maintain eye contact with other participants even in videoconference. However, people rarely make constant eye contact with the other person in face-to-face conversations. Although a person’s gaze generally reflects their intentions, if the system unconditionally corrects gaze, the intention of the user’s gaze is incorrectly conveyed. Therefore, we conducted a preliminary study to develop an eye contact framework; a system that corrects the user’s gaze only when the system detects that the user is looking at the face of the videoconferencing participant. In this study, participants used this system in a online conference and evaluated it qualitatively. As a result, this prototype was not significant in the evaluation of gaze awareness, but useful feedback was obtained from the questionnaire. We will improve this prototype and aim to develop a framework to facilitate non-verbal communication in online videoconferences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://google.github.io/mediapipe/solutions/face_detection.html.

  2. 2.

    https://corexy.com/.

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Acknowledgement

This work was funded by JST CREST Grant Number JPMJCR19F2, Japan. We are grateful to Associate Prof. Hiromi Morita for lending us the Tobii Pro Nano for our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Development Center for Digital Nature, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kazuya Izumi, Shieru Suzuki, Ryogo Niwa, Atsushi Shinoda, Ryo Iijima, Ryosuke Hyakuta & Yoichi Ochiai

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  1. Kazuya Izumi
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  2. Shieru Suzuki
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  3. Ryogo Niwa
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  4. Atsushi Shinoda
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Correspondence to Kazuya Izumi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Open University of Japan, Chiba, Japan

    Masaaki Kurosu

  2. Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan

    Ayako Hashizume

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Izumi, K. et al. (2023). A Preliminary Study on Eye Contact Framework Toward Improving Gaze Awareness in Video Conferences. In: Kurosu, M., Hashizume, A. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14011. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35596-7_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35596-7_31

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