Meet the scientist revolutionising our work calls by using virtual reality

Platforms like Teams and Zoom really kept us connected when the pandemic hit - but from dodgy internet to muted mics - they're not without their problems.

With many of us transitioning to a hybrid model of working from home and in-office, many of us are familiar with video conference calls where encouraging interaction can be like getting blood from a stone.

With cameras turned off or working from various tabs on the screen, experts reckon we are missing the nuances of understanding when communication is beginning to break down.

In a bid to try and make remote working feel easier and more natural, University of Glasgow scientist Dr Julie Williamson is looking at how we can utilise immersive technology.

If we have access to a full-body avatar, it may help us react better to social cues and cut down some of those awkward moments on Teams.

Dr Williamson, of the School of Computing Science, has received £1.75m worth of funding from the European Research Council to support the project, called ‘Future Social Interaction in XR’, or FUSION.

Over the next five years, Dr Williamson will work to find new ways of capturing and modelling complex social signals in virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) spaces.

The project’s ultimate aim is to create online experiences which use VR and XR technologies to seamlessly mix virtual avatars alongside their flesh-and-blood counterparts, creating experiences which are difficult to distinguish from real-life interactions.

'Useful, but frustrating'

Dr Williamson, a senior lecturer in human-computer interaction at the University of Glasgow, said: “Many of us became very familiar with virtual meeting software like Zoom and Skype to help us maintain contact with friends, family and co-workers during covid lockdowns.

“While those tools can be very useful, they can also be frustrating experiences. People talk over each other or don’t make consistent eye contact with their cameras, for example, and it’s impossible to see non-verbal cues like body language if you’re restricted to only seeing people’s faces.

“More advanced technologies like virtual reality headsets can allow users to feel more present together, but they’re still very crude approximations compared to face-to-face interactions.

“Social signals like gestures, eye contact and personal space are currently very difficult to recreate in virtual spaces, which often prevents interactions with other people from feeling realistic.

“What we’re aiming to do with FUSION is dissolve the barriers between virtual and physical realities to create social experiences that accurately capture the nuances of human behaviour.”

Dr William says it could be a long time before we start swapping the Teams calls for VR headsets - so for now, we can continue getting away with wearing pyjama bottoms on work calls.

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