Introduction
Presence is concerned with
the sense of being there. The human brain and senses provide
this experience of presence in terms of colours, sounds, movement,
texture, feelings etc.
Achieving an Information Society
with access for all requires the development of more natural
ways of interacting with computer and information technology
systems. This for example, will help to eliminate barriers that
arise from difficulties that people experience in using current
interaction devices such as screens and keyboards. New developments
in interaction will also provide the basis of new types of systems
with innovative and beneficial capabilities, for example in the
field of telemedicine.
A more advanced human-centred
interaction with systems would provide users with a sense of
being there, close to if not equivalent to the experience of
actual presence. Creating this sense of presence remains a major
challenge and has led to the development of new interdisciplinary
research, combining cognitive and haptic (sense of touch) perception
with multimedia design and advanced communications. This research
is directed at developing a better understanding of how a real
sense of presence can be achieved. It involves learning and discovering
what is going on when people use their senses to understand and
interpret their surrounding environment and when they interact
with objects in that environment.
Main Issues
The main issue is establishing
what sensory input iss needed for someone to feel as if they
were present in an environment. There are a number of different
aspects of Presence - sense of touch, vision and sound.
Researchers have discovered
what sensory touch information iss important in identifying objects
such as lumps in medical diagnostic situations. Early results
indicate that there is a kind of touch language learnt by surgeons
that represents embodied knowledge. This is knowledge that is
not represented in symbolic form but which is acquired by people
through experience and which links patterns of touch with interpretations.
This knowledge relies upon different types of sensory input -
visual, auditory, olfactory, taste, haptics, or the integration
of part or all of these.
Vision and the perception of
colour are important in perception. Although colour is in peoples'
heads and is a product of the senses and brain, and hence is
seen differently by people, it does nevertheless represent real
physical properties. Fundamental to creating a better representation
of colour is to understand the physical effects and to model
these correctly. At the micro level surface characteristics are
important and these need to be incorporated into models. Context
is also important as the colour seen by an observer depends on
previously seen colours as well as surrounding colours.
Creating pictures that are
perceived by viewers as real, is a challenging area. Few people
regarded television pictures as real. It is however possible
to design and construct cameras and viewing systems where people
perceive the image as real. Such designs are based on understandings
of vision and how the eye and brain operate, understandings which
show that current technologies such as television cameras have
been designed based on the wrong assumptions.
Another area important to Perception
is hearing and the perception of sound. The current generation
of (traditional) loudspeakers used in many devices (hi-fi, radio
etc.) has limitations. These are designed based on frequency
response and ignore the spatial and time dimensions of sound.
Any sound-producing object generates sound in three dimensions
and this noise resonates with the surrounding environment to
create the sound that people hear. Traditional loudspeakers produce
sound that is unidirectional and they provide poor reproduction
of sounds such as church bells and pianos. New designs for loudspeakers,
that more faithfully reproduce such sounds, are now available.
These new designs provide multidirectional capabilities and thus
create resonance with surrounding objects.
Sound models for objects producing
sounds are an area where research is being undertaken. The focus
is on discovering how sound models could enhance a sense of presence.
One of the main conclusion of this work is that understanding
the physics is important for realistic synthesis of a sound but
even more important for abstracting and generalising the sound
of an object. The concept of sound cartoons, similar in notion
to children's visual cartoons, which do not provide a fully realistic
reproduction, has been proposed. Presence is not necessarily
realism, but fidelity in interaction. The message is that sound
cartoons are relatively inexpensive to produce and could compensate
for deficiencies of visual displays and haptic devices.
The need for the new research
field of Presence is considered to be important. There are a
number of application areas where a good sense of presence is
needed. The first of these is telemedicine, were doctors and
surgeons are undertaking diagnostics and performing operations
at a distance from the patient. The second is presentation of
scientific results where improved pictures could provide better
communication to the audience. The third is military. In some
battlefield situations the limitations of present devices means
that it is still necessary to risk human life by sending in soldiers
to collect information. Improvements in sensors and displays
to provide a realistic presence would help to reduce the need
to use people to collect information in dangerous situations.
Improvement of archives is also an important potential application.
The research is valuable in its own right as it will lead to
a better understanding of humans and animals and their interactions
with the environment.
A better technology could provide
systems that resonate with the way that people think and operate
in the real world. To achieve this state however it is necessary
to understand more about the signals from the environment that
people use to form judgements and to decide upon situations.
It is clear at the moment that this information is missing and
a better fit between people and computer systems can only be
achieved from developing this sort of understanding.
The availability of the next
generation Presence technologies depends on the development of
basic understandings. Improved systems could be built with today's
off-the-shelf components and technologies. The real problem is
deciding upon the design parameters, and this was why basic research
into Presence was needed so that a better understanding could
be achieved. And there is also a long-term need to store as much
information as possible. Current systems might not be able to
use such information but the capabilities of future generations
of technologies are unknown and they might be able to use this
information and could only do so if it was captured and stored.
Image storage should not be constrained and determined by the
requirements of our current technologies. There is a need to
store more information than the human eye can actually see. The
old idea of less is better because it is cheaper is no longer
valid.
Conclusions
and Future Directions
Improvements in understanding
of basic aspects of the way human senses work and how they provide
meaningful information will ultimately help with the creation
of more natural means of interacting with systems. Thus, research
in the field of Presence is not just about abstract study, but
potentially an important enabler of an inclusive Information
Society, providing a means of access suitable for all. These
understandings are also expected to lead to information systems
innovation, proving new devices and services for European society
and its peoples.
Research into Presence is still
at an early stage however. Much more needs to be done to understand
the different aspects of the senses involved - such as vision,
hearing, and touch. Early results indicate that there are deficiencies
in current models and theories and in some cases our current
technologies have been designed based on the wrong assumptions.
New insights into human senses and how they operate are leading
to new technologies and new systems that are already enhancing
the sense of being there. Many of these new system are however
large and expensive and much work will need to be done in the
future on cost and size reduction in order to make them more
widely available. |