LiveMask: A Telepresence Surrogate System with a Face-Shaped Screen for Supporting Nonverbal Communication

Abstract

We propose a telepresence system with a real human face-shaped screen. This system tracks the remote user's face and extracts the head motion and the face image. The face-shaped screen moves along three degree-of-freedom (DOF) by reflecting the user's head gestures. We expect this system can accurately convey the user's non-verbal information in remote communication. In particular, it can transmit the user's gaze direction in the 3D space that is not correctly transmitted by using a 2D screen, which is known as “the Mona Lisa effect.” To evaluate how this system can contribute to communication, we conducted three experiments. As the results of these evaluations, we found that the recognizable angles of the face-shaped screen were bigger, and the recognition of the head directions was better than those of the flat 2D screen. More importantly, we also found the face-shaped screen could accurately convey the gaze directions and it solves the Mona Lisa effect problem even when screen size is reduced.