Altering Non-verbal Cues to Implicitly Direct Attention in Social VR

Abstract

In this work we explore a concept system that alters the virtual eye movements without the user's awareness, and whether this can affect social attention among others. Our concept augments the real movements with subtle redirected gazes to people, that occur in intervals to remain unnoticed. We present a user study with groups of people conversing on a topic, and measure the level of visual attention among users. Compared to a baseline of natural eye movements, we find that the method has indeed affected the overall attention in the group, but in unexpected ways. Our work points to a new way to exploit the inherent role of eyes in social virtual reality.