Editorial: Meeting Remotely - The Challenges of Optimal Avatar Interaction in VR

Abstract

As the world shifted into a new mode of working and living due to the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID19) pandemic, many of the ways in which we communicate and interact with each other have radically altered since 2020. Our everyday life often consists of switching between different applications which connect us in various ways to other people. Mediated communication is a poor substitute for face-to-face communication and while online video conferencing systems appear almost essential now, we are also constantly inventing new ways to improve virtual interactions. For example, while informative, communication through online videos on a flatscreen may not capture rich 3D social signals that are more readily available to us in the physical world. Virtual reality offers an answer to this problem, as it can provide the user with a full-body representation (self-avatar) and a unique experience of presence in an environment with other users in the form of avatars (see AltspaceVR, Engage, RecRoom and VRChat). However, there are many open questions about how exactly to create these avatars to enable a successful interaction in VR. The papers featured in this Research Topic explore questions relating to the types of benefits, challenges and novelty virtual representations others bring to mediated communication.