Human–Machine Interaction in Metaverse

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Computing and Artificial Intelligence".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2023) | Viewed by 1962

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, University of Macerata, 62100 Macerata, Italy
Interests: human-centered design; design for all; human–machine interaction; adaptive user interfaces; emotion- and context-aware interfaces; virtual and augmented reality; extended reality for education; human-centered manufacturing; ICT for inclusive education
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60131 Ancona, AN, Italy
Interests: affective computing; machine learning; deep learning; human–machine interaction; adaptive interfaces; emotion- and context-aware interfaces; virtual and augmented reality; extended reality applications for cultural heritage

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Science (DIISM), Università Politecnica delle Marche, Piazza Roma, 22, 60121 Ancona, Italy
Interests: design theory; extended reality technologies; user experience; affective computing; human–machine interaction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Human–machine interfaces are transforming into tools for conveying increasingly natural modes of communication between human and machine. Advances in the development of extended-reality technologies and fully immersive wearable devices are turning computers into portals to new worlds (i.e., the Metaverse), in which reality will overlap and blend with the digital, creating virtual–real fusion spaces. The Metaverse even holds the promise of facilitating people’s accessibility and inclusion in society, breaking down boundaries and democratizing access to key goods, services and experiences.

In this Special Issue, we aim to provide a forum for colleagues to report their most up-to-date research findings in the field of HCI, focusing on the impact of XR technologies, spanning virtual, augmented, and mixed reality applications and their potential to change human perception and interaction with systems in society.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Design for inclusion in the Metaverse;
  • Novel human–machine interaction for Industry 4.0;
  • XRT and metaverse for education;
  • XRT and metaverse for cultural heritage;
  • Innovative methods and tools for UX assessment in metaverse;
  • New methods to support UX design for metaverse;
  • Intelligent and emotion-aware interfaces in metaverse;
  • Multimodal and immersive interfaces;
  • Haptics interfaces.

Dr. Silvia Ceccacci
Dr. Andrea Generosi
Dr. Maura Mengoni
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • metaverse
  • augmented reality
  • virtual reality
  • mixed reality
  • extended reality
  • accessibility
  • usability
  • user experience
  • user-centered design
  • design for all
  • adaptive interfaces
  • AI
  • interaction design
  • cultural heritage
  • inclusive education
  • Industry 4.0

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 2685 KiB  
Article
Predicting Decision-Making in Virtual Environments: An Eye Movement Analysis with Household Products
by Almudena Palacios-Ibáñez, Javier Marín-Morales, Manuel Contero and Mariano Alcañiz
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(12), 7124; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13127124 - 14 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1220
Abstract
Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for increasing the likelihood of product success. Virtual Reality head-mounted displays incorporating physiological techniques such as eye-tracking offer novel opportunities to study user behavior in decision-making tasks. These methods reveal unconscious or undisclosed consumer responses. Yet, research into [...] Read more.
Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for increasing the likelihood of product success. Virtual Reality head-mounted displays incorporating physiological techniques such as eye-tracking offer novel opportunities to study user behavior in decision-making tasks. These methods reveal unconscious or undisclosed consumer responses. Yet, research into gaze patterns during virtual product evaluations remains scarce. In this context, an experiment was conducted to investigate users’ gaze behavior when evaluating their preferences for 64 virtual prototypes of a bedside table. Here, 24 participants evaluated and selected their preferred design through eight repeated tasks of an 8-AFC, with individual evaluations conducted for each design to ensure the reliability of the findings. Several eye-tracking metrics were computed (i.e., gaze time, visits, and time to first gaze), statistical tests were applied, and a Long Short-Term Memory model was created to recognize decisions based on attentional patterns. Our results revealed that the Gaze Cascade Model was replicated in virtual environments and that a correlation between product liking and eye-tracking metrics exists. We recognize subjects’ decisions with a 90% accuracy, based on their eye patterns during the three seconds before their decision. The results suggest that eye-tracking can be an effective tool for decision-making prediction during product assessment in virtual environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human–Machine Interaction in Metaverse)
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