Matthias Wölfel
Hochschule Furtwangen, Faculty of Digital Media, Faculty Member
- Contemporary Performance Art in the Context of Digital Arts and New Media, Human Computer Interaction, Packaging Design, Morality (Social Psychology), Information Design, Tangible User Interfaces, and 8 moreUbiquitous Computing, Hyperreality, User Interface, Smart spaces, Ambient Intelligence AmI (in ), Pervasive Computing, Physical Computing, and Digital Mediaedit
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Genius
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Research Interests: Art and Springer Ebooks
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Recently virtual reality (VR) applications are shifting from professional use cases to more entertainment-centered approaches. Therefore aesthetic aspects in virtual environments gain in relevance. This paper examines the influence of... more
Recently virtual reality (VR) applications are shifting from professional use cases to more entertainment-centered approaches. Therefore aesthetic aspects in virtual environments gain in relevance. This paper examines the influence of different color determining parameters on user perception habits between head mounted displays (HMD) and computer screens. We conducted an empirical study with 50 persons that were asked to adjust the color temperature, saturation and contrast according to their personal preferences using a HMD as well as a computer screen, respectively. For cross validation we tested a second user group of 36 persons that were asked to adjust the color temperature exclusively. By using a set of five different panorama images—each of them representing an exemplary scenario—we have found that color perception differs significantly. This depends on the used output device as well as gender: i.e. females preferred a significantly colder color scheme in VR compared to their preferences on the computer screen. Furthermore they also chose a significant colder color scheme on the HMD compared to their male counterparts. Our findings demonstrate that content created for conventional screens can not simply be transferred to immersive virtual environments but for optimal results needs reevaluation of its visual aesthetics.
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Research Interests: Onboarding and Impression
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We introduce the concept of asymmetric normalization, which refers to decoupling sensory self-perception from the perception of others in a shared virtual environment to present each user with a normalized version of the other users. This... more
We introduce the concept of asymmetric normalization, which refers to decoupling sensory self-perception from the perception of others in a shared virtual environment to present each user with a normalized version of the other users. This concept can be ap-plied to various avatar-related elements such as appearance, location, or non-verbal communication. For example, each participant in a polyadic virtual reality study can see other participants at an average height of the respective test population, while individual participants continue to see themselves embodied according to their actual height. We demonstrate in a pilot experiment how asymmetric normalization enables the acquisition of new information about social interactions and promises to reduce bias to promote replicability and external validity.
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Digital technologies have many advantages for users, such as virtually unlimited access to information, entertainment, and communication. Most modern human-computer interfaces are developed under the assumption that they will be used by a... more
Digital technologies have many advantages for users, such as virtually unlimited access to information, entertainment, and communication. Most modern human-computer interfaces are developed under the assumption that they will be used by a person with typical physical, intellectual, and perceptual abilities. Although some operating systems already include accessibility features, in most cases the effective use of the respective interface can be severely restricted if a person’s abilities deviate from this norm. To what extent the class of ‘natural‘ user interfaces—including touch, voice and touchless—are accessible to people with intellectual and possibly motor disabilities is an important but not yet investigated question. Therefore, this paper investigates the current accessibility of these three interface types. First, we conducted a field study to Figure out how the target group interacts with these types of interfaces in general. Second, quantitative data on cognitive and motor skills was collected using parts of the Questionnaire for Observing Communicative Skills Revision (OCS-R) which is widely used in institutions for people with disabilities in Germany. Finally, the accessibility of each interface type was analyzed with the help of the data obtained from the questionnaire and an expert survey, which determined the important and unimportant skills required for each interface. These findings show how usable different types of natural user interfaces are for this target group.
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The uncanny valley describes a relationship between the degree of the emotional response with respect to a character’s resemblance to an actual human being. It has been a topic for several decades and has been discussed by scholars of... more
The uncanny valley describes a relationship between the degree of the emotional response with respect to a character’s resemblance to an actual human being. It has been a topic for several decades and has been discussed by scholars of different disciplines and in various aspects such as robotics, 3D computer animations, interactive applications, and even lifelike dolls. With the increasing popularity of photo-realistic computer animation and telepresence applications, we are more and more exposed to characters that might be affected by the uncanny valley effect. Recent research suggests that the output medium, such as a monitor or head-mounted display, can have a significant effect on how we perceive given visualizations. In relation to the uncanny valley, we observe a similar effect in our study: characters appear significantly more eerie as well as humanlike when watched on a head-mounted virtual reality headset instead of a monitor. The amplification we see is similar to the findings that the uncanny valley effect is more pronounced when the respective characters are in motion.
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This paper investigates the current state of handheld augmented reality (AR) gaming apps available on the App Store (iOS) and the Play Store (Android). To be able to directly compare the differences between games played with and without... more
This paper investigates the current state of handheld augmented reality (AR) gaming apps available on the App Store (iOS) and the Play Store (Android). To be able to directly compare the differences between games played with and without AR, only games in which the AR mode can be switched on/off were investigated. Because the main scope of this paper is on the evaluation of the experience provided by AR, parts of the game experience questionnaire (GEQ) have been included in the empirical study. It showed that AR has big potential to improve immersion or flow in the game-play. This paper also identifies differences in the implementation of AR features and investigates how and what parameter in the GEQ can be positively influenced.
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The promise of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular its latest developments in deep learning, has been influencing all kinds of disciplines such as engineering, business, agriculture, and humanities. More recently it also includes... more
The promise of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular its latest developments in deep learning, has been influencing all kinds of disciplines such as engineering, business, agriculture, and humanities. More recently it also includes disciplines that were “reserved” to humans such as art and design. While there is a strong debate going on if creativity is profoundly human, we want to investigate if creativity can be supported or fostered by AI—not replaced. This paper investigates if AI is capable of (a) inspiring designers by suggesting unexpected design variations, (b) learning the designer’s taste or (c) being a co-creation partner.
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The use of smart devices has become an integrated part of our everyday life. Communication is now possible any place and any time. The distraction caused by these devices, however, can lead to potentially dangerous situations. To mitigate... more
The use of smart devices has become an integrated part of our everyday life. Communication is now possible any place and any time. The distraction caused by these devices, however, can lead to potentially dangerous situations. To mitigate these situations, various researchers have proposed and developed solutions to analyze the environment and to alert the user if a situation is evaluated dangerous. While seeking technical solutions, the concerns of the users are usually not addressed. With our study we put the needs of the user into focus and investigated the acceptance and other issues of such applications. We found that environment awareness for users receiving warnings can be significantly improved compared to those who do not . We also found that 56% of the participants who tested a safety application and received warnings would use it, while only 46% would use it a-priori without testing it. We can also confirm that females are more willing to use a safety application than men.
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The visual representation of human-like entities in virtual worlds is becoming a very important aspect as virtual reality becomes more and more “social”. The visual representation of a character’s resemblance to a real person and the... more
The visual representation of human-like entities in virtual worlds is becoming a very important aspect as virtual reality becomes more and more “social”. The visual representation of a character’s resemblance to a real person and the emotional response to it, as well as the expectations raised, have been a topic of discussion for several decades and have been debated by scientists from different disciplines. But as with any new technology, the findings may need to be reevaluated and adapted to new modalities. In this context, we make two contributions which may have implications for how avatars should be represented in social virtual reality applications. First, we determine how default and customized characters of current social virtual reality platforms appear in terms of human likeness, eeriness, and likability, and whether there is a clear resemblance to a given person. It can be concluded that the investigated platforms vary strongly in their representation of avatars. Common t...
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Virtual words, independent of their realizations, let us experience a person's sense of Being There, a form of spatial immersion dubbed presence. Where we are and even who we are is the result of living in the real world as well as a... more
Virtual words, independent of their realizations, let us experience a person's sense of Being There, a form of spatial immersion dubbed presence. Where we are and even who we are is the result of living in the real world as well as a multitude of virtual worlds. This visceral feeling depends on several technical dimensions, which have been widely discussed, including the realism of the virtual environment and the embodiment of oneself and the others. But presence and belonging are preliminary not a question of technique but a question of the provided format, the symbolic spaces and of social interaction. A virtual world is always a managed space and a managed me with all its complications. It is about the basic conceptions of a conditio humana.
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The contribution tries to sketch the development of a certain kind of technology, namely user-specific computational technologies which promise an increase in gaining individual freedom. It was a promise that increasingly led to a... more
The contribution tries to sketch the development of a certain kind of technology, namely user-specific computational technologies which promise an increase in gaining individual freedom. It was a promise that increasingly led to a predominance of managed 'freedoms' and hence, to an increased formatization of technical tools and individual perception alike. The overall effect was that a seemingly increase in individual user-freedom was accompanied by a de facto-increase in preformatted devices for achieving it, and hence, led to the actual decrease of this very freedom, despite the latter seemed to have increased steadily. All in all, the entire process to be examined here increasingly based upon formats of both an economic and technological nature. In its final outcomes, it led to an almost complete loss of freedom for the official beneficiary of such devices, the user.
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In this publication we introduced a radical new concept of perceiving information in written form: Until today, after the layout process has finished, the shape of a single typographic character is treated as an unchangeable property. But... more
In this publication we introduced a radical new concept of perceiving information in written form: Until today, after the layout process has finished, the shape of a single typographic character is treated as an unchangeable property. But due to current sensor and display technologies this does not have to be necessary anymore. We propose, to change the shape of each character according to various conditions of the user while maintaining its individual and discriminative identity. In contrast to fixed character shapes, responsive character shapes are not limited to be adjusted for a particular output media, but offers the possibilities to adjust to personal conditions such as age, position and defects of sight. This seemingly simple difference, however, questions information brokering fundamentally. It expands the possibilities, besides the engagement of the media, to perceive information within the context and the conditions of the individual. Through experiments and user studies, we demonstrated that our proposed approach, dubbed responsive type, is widely accepted and readability as well as legibility can be improved.
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Abstract. This paper describes the “FAME ” multi-modal demonstrator, which integrates multiple communication modes – vision, speech and object manip-ulation – by combining the physical and virtual worlds to provide support for... more
Abstract. This paper describes the “FAME ” multi-modal demonstrator, which integrates multiple communication modes – vision, speech and object manip-ulation – by combining the physical and virtual worlds to provide support for multi-cultural or multi-lingual communication and problem solving. The major challenges are automatic perception of human actions and understand-ing of dialogs between people from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds. The system acts as an information butler, which demonstrates context awareness using computer vision, speech and dialog modeling. The integrated computer-enhanced human-to-human communication has been publicly demonstrated at the FORUM2004 in Barcelona and at IST2004 in The Hague. Specifically, the “Interactive Space ” described features an “Augmented Table” for multi-cultural interaction, which allows several users at the same time to per-form multi-modal, cross-lingual document retrieval of audio-visual documents previously recorded by ...
Systematic Literature Review on current quantitative research regarding differences between real world and HMD VR; between 2D (Monitors) and HMD VR; between C.A.V.E. and HDM VR;
The introduction of sensory information into computer-supported learning results in a manifold of available data to be collected. In this publication we investigate how this “more in data” does not inevitably lead to a “more in... more
The introduction of sensory information into computer-supported learning results in a manifold of available data to be collected. In this publication we investigate how this “more in data” does not inevitably lead to a “more in distraction” at the interface. This becomes possible by analyzing intentional and non-intentional actions of the user or the environmental conditions to detect – using artificial intelligence – for instance, if the learner is unconcentrated, tired, or over-challenged. Relying on this analysis within a learning session, a user model can therefore be dynamically updated. This offers the possibility for a direct feedback loop to reflect the learner’s status, progress, etc. but also raises novel challenges that need to be addressed, namely, when to intervene, how much feedback needs to be provided, and how to represent the required information in order to reduce the distraction and thus to improve learning success.
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This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th EAI International Conference on ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation, ArtsIT 2021 which was held in December 2021. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the conference was... more
This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th EAI International Conference on ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation, ArtsIT 2021 which was held in December 2021. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held virtually. The 31 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 57 submissions. The papers are thematically arranged in the following sections: Media Arts and Virtual Reality; Games; Fusions; Collaboration, Inclusion and Participation; Artificial Intelligence in Art and Culture; Approaches and Applications.