Download Virtual character - Department of Computer and Information Science

Immersive Virtual Characters for
Educating Medical Communication Skills
J. Hernendez, A. Stevens, D. S. Lind
Department of Surgery (College of Medicine)
M. Duerson
Department of Community Health and Family Medicine (College of
Medicine)
K. Johnsen, R. Dickerson, A. Raij, B. Lok
Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering
(College of Engineering)
The University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
J. Jackson, M. Shin
Department of Computer Science
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
What is a Virtual Character?
Virtual character - a character who represents the state
of a system
 In TRON (1982), humans and humans that represents
software interacted within a world that represented
the hardware.
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What is a Virtual Character

r
We aim to to have humans and human the represent
software interact in the real world.
Virtual Character Research

Mostly
– Rendering
– Animation
– Artificial Intelligence
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Newer approaches
– Affective power
– Human response to
VCs
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Clinical Psychology
– Fear of public speaking
Motivation
“Doctor, I have a
pain in my side!”
 What you do next
depends on:
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Age
Gender
Ethnicity
Visual Cues
Audio Cues
Motivation
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Current methodologies
– Books
– Standardized Patients
(actors)
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Restricted in:
– Training frequency
– Scenario variety
– Immediate feedback
Affects medical student
preparedness
 Provide additional
training opportunities
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Solution

Interactive Virtual Characters
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–
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Life-Sized
Computer Generated
Natural Interaction
Responds to User
Responses based on accepted
medical procedure
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COTS Equipment:
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Projectors
Laptops
Web cameras
Tablet PC
Why Do We Want Virtual
Characters?

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Propose: Digital Characters as
a new (meta-) medium to
interact with information
Effective Interaction
– Better than keyboard and mouse
for certain tasks
– Dynamic
– 3D
– Natural interaction
– Low Bandwidth

Effective Collaboration
– Controlled conveyed visual
information
– Non-verbal communication (60%)
Let’s look at interaction
Each participant in a communication has three
stages: perception, cognition, and response
 Define interaction as both the input and output

Digital Character
Digital Character
Thinking
Responding
Perceiving
Interaction
Perceiving
Participant
Responding
Thinking
Combines
Speech
 Computer Vision
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– Eye Gaze
– Gesture Recognition
– Repeat your gestures
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High Quality 3D models
– Animation
– Rendering
– Visualization
Integrates
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Computer Science
– Computer Graphics
– Image Processing
– Natural Language Processing
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Medicine
– Training
– Education
– Standardization
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Education
– Multimedia Learning
– Technology based Learning
– Training
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What other areas could this be
used for?
– Psychology
– Social Science
– Education
Current and Future Work
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Current Status:
– Initial scenario created with gesture, speech,
and visualization components integrated
– Evaluating with a group of Medical Students
Year 2
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Future Work:
– Formal evaluation studies
– Increase and improve scenarios
– Enhance interactivity
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