Social Cues

Where you are both in the world and relative to conversation partners shapes the information exchanged. Also, how you look sends a message to others. They will make assumptions and trigger emotions based on your clothing, body modifications, gender and race.

Humans have an invisible bubble around them known as personal space. When someone enters this bubble, the person will have an emotional reaction based on who is entering and what is being discussed.

This demo provides an example of how proximity affects conversations.

Games currently only address whether a character is within a trigger radius around a computer controlled character and do not care whether the conversation is being held twenty feet or ten inches apart. InteraQuest is evaluating how to provide feedback to cue players that proximity affects the current conversation.

This demo provides an example of how mode of dress interacts with the social setting.

Some games are already starting to apply conversation modifiers to what the player’s character is wearing. InteraQuest is investigating methods of adding sophistication and feedback to these options.