Extended Reality (XR) as a Communication Medium: Special Issue Guest Editorial

The explosive growth of extended reality (XR) technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic (Koumaditis et al., 2021), the recent rise of high-quality virtual and augmented reality platforms that afford collaboration in shared hybrid spaces (Pidel & Ackermann, 2020), and the increased interest of both commercial and research institutions towards the design and development of the metaverse (Dwivedi et al., 2022) highlight the potential of XR to serve as a fundamental communication medium in the future (Dzardanova et al., 2022).XR technologies connect users, whether they are far away or close by, in shared virtual environments. These immersive spaces offer rich multisensory experiences, fostering meaningful communication. XR systems allow the co-presence of individuals in immersive or hybrid spaces through high-fidelity personalized avatars, physical presence, or live video transmission (Nguyen & Bednarz, 2020). Participants of these environments may communicate in real time through spatial voice and, using advanced tracking technologies, they may incorporate a multitude of nonverbal cues such as full-body gestures, gaze, and facial expressions (Kasapakis et al., 2021; Maloney et al., 2020; Baker et al., 2021). XR enhances natural and physical interactions through embodied interfaces, enabling multiple users to collaborate in immersive and visually appealing virtual environments. (Lee & Yoo, 2021). Those features render XR the most effective alternative to face-to-face communication and collaboration but pose challenges regarding their impact on the medium's efficiency and overall user experience.Some of these challenges include, but are not limited to, usability and user experience in multi-user XR environments, nonverbal communication in immersive virtual reality, novel system setups for co-presence and remote collaboration, impact of embodiment in user behavior and social presence, and the design and evaluation of multi-user XR systems in specific application areas. Our interest in shedding more light on these issues inspired the call for this special issue. We aimed to collect and present recent advances related to XR systems and their affordances as communication and collaboration environments. The call sought original studies or reviews that address new challenges and implications and explore the potential of XR to serve as a communication medium along with the factors which can affect its efficiency and overall user experience.The Presence: Virtual and Augmented Reality special issue on “Extended Reality (XR) as a Communication Medium” received 23 submissions contributed by 77 authors representing 38 institutions across various countries, including Canada, Spain, India, Peru, Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Taiwan, Greece, China, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Finland, and Romania.Following a rigorous review process, seven outstanding papers have been finally selected for inclusion in the special issue. Each paper received two to three reviews from independent experts in at least two rounds of submission and revision. Guest editors performed meta-reviews on the papers in each round and the manuscripts selected for publication were those receiving the highest ratings from reviewers.The special issue on “Extended Reality (XR) as a Communication Medium” features seven papers that explore diverse research topics within its broader scope. They include a range of technologies from desktop multi-user virtual worlds to state-of-the-art telepresence systems; various application fields in education, simulation, and training; and studies of the impact of these systems on the quality of human communication and collaboration.The ability to accurately perceive moving entities and predict their path while wearing a virtual reality headset is a factor that affects coordination and co-presence in immersive virtual environments. The first paper of this special issue by Nicolò Dozio, Ludovico Rozza, Marek Slawomir Lukasiewicz, Alessandro Colombo, and Francesco Ferrise, entitled “Localization and Prediction of Visual Targets' Position in Immersive Virtual Reality,” includes a relevant study for driving scenarios. It investigates how humans localize and predict the position of neighboring road users in immersive VR environments. The authors report the results of two experiments assessing the localization and prediction accuracy of static and moving visual targets. Thus, they provide a solid basis to test the effects of different ergonomics and driver-vehicle interaction designs on perception accuracy in different VR setups.Full-body tracking is a desired feature in immersive or hybrid communication environments, as it transmits nonverbal cues and leads to more accurate and responsive user representations. This feature is even more important if any kind of human full-body performance or activity is being communicated. The next two papers study the impact of full-body tracking in XR applications for dance training and physical therapy.The paper authored by Kazuhiro Esaki and Katashi Nagao, entitled “VR Dance Training System Capable of Human Motion Tracking and Automatic Dance Evaluation,” describes the development of a VR dance self-training system for hip-hop dance. The system uses an accurate and efficient 3D posture estimation technique to track human 3D movements. The practitioner's dance is automatically evaluated using an effective machine learning (contrastive learning) method. The proposed system is applicable to a variety of sports in which body movements are the target of evaluation. Next, the paper authored by Hanseul Jun, Husam Shaik, Michael Lewek, Henry Fuchs, and Jeremy Beilenson entitled “An Evaluation Study of 2D and 3D Teleconferencing for Remote Physical Therapy” introduces a telepresence system and compares its effectiveness for physical therapy sessions against video conferencing. The study also measures the effectiveness of having a second camera providing an additional point of view for users. This study provides a solid basis for other researchers towards building effective remote communication systems meant to support spatial tasks.XR environments have delivered promising results in education so far, but further studies are needed to assess the quality of communication of various setups and their effectiveness in different subjects and student groups. The next three papers study aspects of XR systems applied in VR learning environments.The paper authored by Meei-Ling Liaw, entitled “Virtual Reality for Telecollaboration Among Teachers of An Additional Language: Insights from the Multimodal (Inter)Action Analysis,” investigates the use of immersive VR technologies to support telecollaboration among language teachers. Multimodal (inter)action analysis (MIA) is employed to examine the participants’ VR technology--mediated (inter)actions when they engage in intercultural communication. Based on experimental findings, the authors provide suggestions for designing and investigating intercultural telecollaboration in VR environments.The paper authored by Georgia Iatraki and Tassos A. Mikropoulos, entitled “Augmented Reality in Physics Education: Students with Intellectual Disabilities Inquire the Structure of Matter,” explores the use of augmented reality (AR) in special education, particularly for students with intellectual disabilities (ID). The study evaluates the effectiveness of an AR system in improving the performance of students with ID, particularly in understanding abstract physics concepts. An empirical study reveals that the combination of inquiry-based learning with the use of AR provides a vivid and appealing experience, thus having a positive effect on the engagement and interest of students with ID in the learning process.The paper authored by Filipe A. Fernandes and Cláudia M. L. Werner, entitled “A Scoping Review of the Metaverse for Software Engineering Education: Overview, Challenges, and Opportunities,” conducts a systematic literature review of virtual worlds in software engineering education (SEE), provides a research agenda to fill the limitations found, and proposes an architecture of the metaverse for SEE. The results of this study indicate the need to develop mechanisms to support the integration between virtual worlds. Based on these findings, the authors propose an architecture of the metaverse for SEE (MetaSEE).The last paper in this special issue offers a comprehensive overview of nonverbal communication (NVC) in immersive virtual environments (IVEs). The paper has been authored by Ioannis Xenakis, Spyros Vosinakis, Vlasios Kasapakis, Elena Dzardanova, and Damianos Gavalas and is entitled “Nonverbal Communication in Immersive Virtual Reality through the Lens of Presence: A Critical Review.” The study discusses how presence, as a core social factor, is affected by the perception of nonverbal signals and how NVC may be effectively utilized to facilitate social interactions in immersive environments. The authors propose a classification of the fundamental NVC modalities, which they associate with conceptualizations of presence that are most relevant to interpersonal communication. They also investigate the NVC-related aspects essential to construct an “active” virtual self-concept and highlight associations among NVC-related aspects through forming a web of research topics coming from the field of IVEs.This special issue presents two reviews and five original research studies about aspects of communication in XR and related application areas. Generally, the results of these works are encouraging and confirm previous studies that modern XR solutions have the capacity to support high-quality communication and collaboration among human users or even between humans and embodied virtual agents. It seems that there are specific application areas that can benefit from the communication opportunities offered by immersive or augmented environments. In training and education, the ability to coexist in rich constructive spaces and to collaborate towards a common goal in a natural and playful manner is often a critical success factor. Even more important is the fact that XR environments may help with the inclusion of special student groups, such as children with intellectual disabilities, where an inquiry-based approach has led to positive engagement and interest. Furthermore, the ability of some sophisticated systems for full-body tracking and transmission opens up new opportunities for remote communication and collaboration in therapy and performance arts. Finally, immersive VR systems can support rich social cues and have been successfully used as platforms for social studies in controlled environments. The continuous improvement of VR hardware in terms of functionality is expected to widen the utilization of these environments as experimental testbeds for research in social sciences and the humanities.The road to multi-user immersive and augmented environments with rich communication capabilities is, however, not without obstacles. Virtual worlds are still isolated spaces with their own user base and content and there are no common platforms or means of interconnection, as noted in the review of the metaverse for software engineering education. Additionally, it seems that our perceptual capabilities in immersive VR are not as accurate and robust as in the real world, and these differences in estimating the location and movement of other entities may have important impact in training and simulation scenarios and need further study. Last but not least, the cost of high-end hardware, the limited accessibility of immersive devices for users with disabilities, and the usability issues that some of these systems still suffer from if used for long time, are barriers that need to be overcome to reach a desired state of massive adoption of XR for remote collaboration.We would like to thank the authors of all submitted papers for considering our special issue and the Presence: Virtual and Augmented Reality journal as a potential publication venue for their research results. We would like to especially thank the authors of the accepted papers for their effort in revising and improving their work, occasionally several times, in response to reviewer comments. We are indebted to the anonymous reviewers who volunteered their time to provide valuable feedback and enhance the quality of accepted papers.The organization of this special issue has been supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) under the “First Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Faculty members and Researchers and the procurement of high-cost research equipment grant” (Project Number: HFRI-FM17-1168).

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