Exploring Mixed-Interaction Mode in a Virtual Cockpit: Controller and Hand Gesture Integration Yemon Lee, Andy M. Connor, Stefan Marks Virtual Worlds, 2025 This paper evaluates a new interaction mode for object manipulation tasks in virtual reality (VR) utilizing an aircraft cockpit simulation. Building on prior research, this study examines the effectiveness and user experience of a mixed-interaction mode that involves the combination of handheld controllers with hand gestures. Qualitative interviews with participants provided detailed feedback on the combined input approach. The analysis highlights the strengths and challenges of the mixed-interaction mode, indicating a perceived increase in task completion efficacy and enhanced user experience. As an outcome of the research, design guidelines were developed based on participants’ insights, focusing on the optimal balance of naturalness and precision for mixed interaction in VR that can also be utilized more generally. This study offers practical implications for creating immersive virtual environments and informs future research in VR interaction modes and user experience.
Projects and Portfolios-An Educator's Reflections on the Summative Assessments in a Game Programming Course Steffan Hooper, Burkhard Wünsche, Stefan Marks, Andrew Luxton-Reilly, Paul Denny Proceedings SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Educator S Forum SA 2024, 2024 This paper describes the assessments in a third-year undergraduate Game Programming elective course.Three summative assessments are conducted throughout the semester: an Individual Game Project, a Team Game Project, and a Personal Portfolio.Throughout the course, learners develop a variety of formative artefacts that build towards their individual game, and then are further extended collaboratively to develop their team game.Artefacts generated by learners are also added to their Personal Portfolio, which is designed to target game industry employment opportunities.We provide critical reflection on the implementation of the assessments, and discuss some of the challenges.We share our insights to assist educators wanting to explore authentic game industry-style assessment.
Pedagogical design in education using augmented reality: a systematic review Sebastian Gil Parga, Umang Singh, Jairo Gutierrez, Stefan Marks Interactive Learning Environments, 2024 There is a growing interest in using Augmented Reality technologies in education due to common perceived advantages like its accessibility and the increase in academical performance and motivation it promotes. Yet, most research done does not offer a deeper analysis of how AR technologies are used to reach different educational goals or the scenarios for which the technology is better or worse suited for. We conducted a systematic literature review to find educational projects applying AR technologies during the 2017–2021 period and analysed them through a pedagogical lens using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (BRT). 67 research articles were surveyed to identify the pedagogical design used and the reported results. We found that AR technologies are predominantly used in and better suited for training or practice scenarios, as well as helping in understanding complex, abstract or hard-to-find information. Most problems reported are associated to usability issues or a poor pedagogical design.
Computer Graphics and Extended Reality Courses for the Programmophobic Stefan Marks, Sebastián Gil Parga Proceedings SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 Educators Forum SA 2023, 2023 This paper describes the challenges and solutions to teaching computer graphics as well as extended reality concepts to students from a variety of backgrounds in the context of the School of Future Environments at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. Examples are provided for the content and assessment strategies for two courses, as well as a summary of student work and feedback collected over the last three years.
Humanness lies in unpredictability: Role of Theory of Mind on anthropomorphism in human-computer interactions Julia Ayache, Andrew M. Connor, Stefan Marks, Alexander Sumich, Nadja Heym Hai 2022 Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Human Agent Interaction, 2022 Predictability is a core aspect of human-computer interaction (HCI), but an excess of predictability can lead to stereotypical behaviors and decreases the perceived agentivity (i.e., anthropomorphism) of a virtual agent. Yet, it remains unclear if inter-individual variability in predicting the behavior of other is modulating tendencies for anthropomorphism. The present study investigated the interaction between Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities and agent predictability and their association with anthropomorphism. Participants (N=38) completed self-reports of Perspective Taking capabilities and played the Matching Pennies Game with a virtual agent. The agent’s predictability was manipulated across four conditions, and participants reported their perception of the agent’s humanness and predictability. Results revealed that perceived predictability rather than self-reported Perspective Taking capabilities were positively associated with ToM abilities in predicting virtual agent’s behavior. However, increasing the virtual agent’s predictability decreased tendencies for anthropomorphism, stressing the role of randomness in perceiving humanness.
Evaluation of a Multi-agent “Human-in-the-loop” Game Design System Jan Kruse, Andy M. Connor, Stefan Marks ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 2022 Designing games is a complicated and time-consuming process, where developing new levels for existing games can take weeks. Procedural content generation offers the potential to shorten this timeframe, however, automated design tools are not adopted widely in the game industry. This article presents an expert evaluation of a human-in-the-loop generative design approach for commercial game maps that incorporates multiple computational agents. The evaluation aims to gauge the extent to which such an approach could support and be accepted by human game designers and to determine whether the computational agents improve the overall design. To evaluate the approach, 11 game designers utilized the approach to design game levels with the computational agents both active and inactive. Eye-tracking, observational, and think-aloud data was collected to determine whether designers favored levels suggested by the computational agents. This data was triangulated with qualitative data from semi-structured interviews that were used to gather overall opinions of the approach. The eye-tracking data indicates that the participating game level designers showed a clear preference for levels suggested by the computational agents, however, expert designers in particular appeared to reject the idea that the computational agents are helpful. The perception of computational tools not being useful needs to be addressed if procedural content generation approaches are to fulfill their potential for the game industry.
Exploring the “Dark Matter” of Social Interaction: Systematic Review of a Decade of Research in Spontaneous Interpersonal Coordination Julia Ayache, Andy Connor, Stefan Marks, Daria J. Kuss, Darren Rhodes, Alexander Sumich, Nadja Heym Frontiers in Psychology, 2021 Interpersonal coordination is a research topic that has attracted considerable attention this last decade both due to a theoretical shift from intra-individual to inter-individual processes and due to the development of new methods for recording and analyzing movements in ecological settings. Encompassing spatiotemporal behavioral matching, interpersonal coordination is considered as “social glue” due to its capacity to foster social bonding. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect are still unclear and recent findings suggest a complex picture. Goal-oriented joint action and spontaneous coordination are often conflated, making it difficult to disentangle the role of joint commitment from unconscious mutual attunement. Consequently, the goals of the present article are twofold: (1) to illustrate the rapid expansion of interpersonal coordination as a research topic and (2) to conduct a systematic review of spontaneous interpersonal coordination, summarizing its latest developments and current challenges this last decade. By applying Rapid Automatic Keyword Extraction and Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithms, keywords were extracted from PubMed and Scopus databases revealing the large diversity of research topics associated with spontaneous interpersonal coordination. Using the same databases and the keywords “behavioral matching,” “interactional synchrony,” and “interpersonal coordination,” 1,213 articles were identified, extracted, and screened following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. A total of 19 articles were selected using the following inclusion criteria: (1) dynamic and spontaneous interactions between two unacquainted individuals (2) kinematic analyses, and (3) non-clinical and non-expert adult populations. The results of this systematic review stress the proliferation of various definitions and experimental paradigms that study perceptual and/or social influences on the emergence of spontaneous interpersonal coordination. As methods and indices used to quantify interpersonal coordination differ from one study to another, it becomes difficult to establish a coherent picture. This review highlights the need to reconsider interpersonal coordination not as the pinnacle of social interactions but as a complex dynamical process that requires cautious interpretation. An interdisciplinary approach is necessary for building bridges across scattered research fields through opening a dialogue between different theoretical frameworks and consequently provides a more ecological and holistic understanding of human social cognition.
Discrete versus Continuous Colour Pickers Impact Colour Selection in Virtual Reality Art-Making Marylyn Alex, Danielle Lottridge, Jisu Lee, Stefan Marks, Burkhard Wüensche ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 2020 Colour selection is an important task in digital art and 3D modelling applications. Most colour pickers are based on continuous colour spaces or a representative sampling of them, such as the Munsell colour palette. Continuous colour space-based pickers enable users to select from all colours by displaying full saturation hues with options to lower saturation and modify value. The two-step process of colour selection from continuous pickers requires understanding of 3D colour space, e.g., where to find “brown” or “sand”. In this research we investigate how continuous versus discrete pickers affect colour selection in virtual art. We compared an HSV picker with a discrete picker in a study with 40 participants aged 16 - 60. We found that the colour picker impacted the kinds of colours used in artworks, with significant differences in colour distribution characteristics. We discuss implications of colour selection tools for virtual reality art-making.
Development of a virtual construction approach for steel structures considering structural and nonstructural elements, and installation equipment Proceedings of the International Conference of Architectural Science Association, 2020
Design of a virtual trainer for exergaming Lindsay Alexander Shaw, Romain Tourrel, Burkhard Claus Wunsche, Christof Lutteroth, Stefan Marks, Jude Buckley ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 2016
Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications, 2016
Preface Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications, 2016
Exposing Core Competencies for Future Creative Technologists Andy M. Connor, Ricardo Sosa, Sangeeta Karmokar, Stefan Marks, Maggie Buxton, Ann Marie Gribble, Anna G. Jackson, Jacques Foottit Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications, 2016
Experimental study of steer-by-wire ratios and response curves in a simulated high speed vehicle Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series, 2013
An ethnographic study of a high cognitive load driving environment Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series, 2013
Using game engine technology for virtual environment teamwork training 20th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics Visualization and Computer Vision Wscg 2012 Conference Proceedings, 2012
Head tracking based avatar control for virtual environment teamwork training Grapp 2011 Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, 2011
Enhancing Virtual Environment-Based Surgical Teamwork Training With Non-Verbal Communication Grapp 2009 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, 2009
Evaluation of game engines for simulated clinical training New Zealand Computer Science Research Student Conference Nzcsrsc 2008 Proceedings, 2008
Evaluation of game engines for simulated surgical training Stefan Marks, John Windsor, Burkhard Wünsche Proceedings Graphite 2007 5th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Australasia and Southeast Asia, 2007
