Enhancing the Lingering Presence of Remote Speakers by Visual Morphing in Telepresence Robot.

Abstract

Telepresence robot can give a sense such like remote person is really existing there. However, this sense is suddenly disappeared after the call. Therefore, the talker will feel loneliness. This research explores "tele-vestige" in which talkers can feel weak presence even after a call finish. To give this "tele-vestige", remote person's face is morphed to a telepresence robot's face after the call. We tested a pilot experiment to investigate the effect of this morphing on loneliness.