Rose Connolly

Title: Don’t Stand So Close to Me: Proxemics and Gaze Behaviors in the Metaverse

Supervision Team: Rachel McDonnell, TCD / Cathy Ennis, TU Dublin / Victor Zordan, Principal Scientist Roblox

Description: Given the prolific rise of the Metaverse, understanding how people connect socially via avatars in immersive virtual reality has become increasingly important. Current social platforms do not model non-verbal behaviors well such as proxemics (how close people stand to one another), and mutual gaze (whether or not they are looking at one another). However, these cues are extremely important in social interactions and communication. In this project, we will record and investigate real eye gaze and proxemics in groups and build computational models to improve avatar motions in interactive immersive virtual spaces. This position is partially supported by funds from Roblox Corporation.

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