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  "whatThisIs": "A research brief: a structured summary of one paper, prepared for seanrintel.com from the paper's full text.",
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  ],
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 },
 "name": "Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence",
 "author": [
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Brennan Jones"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Yaying Zhang"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Priscilla N. Y. Wong"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "@id": "https://seanrintel.com/#sean-rintel",
   "name": "Sean Rintel",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/",
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    "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xc25GRgAAAAJ",
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102369654",
    "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/serintel/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanrintel"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "datePublished": "2021-04",
 "doi": "10.1145/3449133",
 "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html",
 "citation": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133",
 "bibtex": "@inproceedings{jones2021belonging,\nauthor = {Jones, Brennan and Zhang, Yaying and Wong, Priscilla N. Y. and Rintel, Sean},\ntitle = {Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence},\nbooktitle = {2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work},\nyear = {2021},\nmonth = {April},\npublisher = {ACM},\nurl = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133},\ndoi = {10.1145/3449133},\n}",
 "abstract": "The world is entering a new normal of hybrid organisations, in which it will be common that some members are co-located and others are remote. Hybridity is rife with asymmetries that affect our sense of belonging in an organisational space. This paper reports a study of an XR Telepresence technology probe to explore how remote workers might present themselves and be perceived as an equal and unique embodied being in a workplace. VROOM (Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings) augments a standard Mobile Robotic Telepresence experience by (1) adding a virtual avatar overlay of the remote person to the local space, viewable through a HoloLens worn by the local user, through which the remote user can gesture and express themselves, and (2) giving the remote user an immersive 360° view of the local space, captured by a 360° camera on the robot, which they can view through a VR headset. We ran a study to understand how pairs of participants (one local and one remote) collaborate using VROOM in a search and word-guessing game. Our findings illustrate that there is much potential for a system like VROOM to support dynamic collaborative activities in which embodiment, gesturing, mobility, spatial awareness, and non-verbal expressions are important. However, there are also challenges to be addressed, specifically around proprioception, the mixing of a physical robot body with a virtual human avatar, uncertainties of others’ views and capabilities, fidelity of expressions, and the appearance of the avatar. We conclude with further design suggestions and recommendations for future work.",
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   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133",
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   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.pdf",
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 "fullTextAvailable": true,
 "takeaway": "Combining mobile robotic telepresence with mixed reality should aim to help remote and local people feel the remote person belongs there, not just is there. Imitating presence raises expectations that go unmet (an 'Uncanny Valley of Telepresence'), so designs should offer the comforts of belonging, even in unnatural, asymmetric ways.",
 "whyItMatters": {
  "stateOfTheArt": {
   "summary": "In hybrid collaboration, remote people are more likely to be marginalised. Technologies such as mobile robotic telepresence, VR, AR and 360° video each address part of what remote workers lack, but none addresses all of it.",
   "quote": "Remote workers fundamentally lack five of the building block affordances for physical autonomy and affiliation available to local workers: mobility, embodiment, expressiveness, awareness, and presence.",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  },
  "contribution": {
   "summary": "Instead of giving both ends the same video link, the authors' probe, VROOM, gives each side an experience suited to it. The authors compare it with a standard telepresence robot, not to pick a winner but to see how people account for each approach to belonging. From this the authors propose an 'Uncanny Valley of Telepresence', after Mori's Uncanny Valley.",
   "quote": "we argue that there is an 'Uncanny Valley of Telepresence' in which there a sharp dip in the continuous increase of both local and remote users' senses of belonging as a telepresence experience becomes more like physical presence",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  },
  "whoCares": {
   "summary": "Designers and researchers of telepresence and XR systems for hybrid organisations, where some members are co-located and others remote.",
   "quote": "We conclude that XR Telepresence should focus on providing the comforts of belonging, even if done in unnatural ways, rather than focusing on pure imitation.",
   "location": "§1, p. 3"
  }
 },
 "researchQuestions": [
  "How might remote workers present themselves and be perceived as an equal and unique embodied being in a workplace? (Stated aim of the probe study.)",
  "How do local and remote users account for the different technological approaches of a standard mobile robotic telepresence system and the VROOM XR telepresence probe to 'belonging' to a space, and where are the 'treacherous slopes and potential handholds' in the Uncanny Valley of Telepresence?"
 ],
 "concepts": [
  {
   "term": "Asymmetric XR telepresence",
   "definition": "Rather than giving both sides the same view, VROOM fits each side's experience to its own endpoint:",
   "quote": "Instead of twinned endpoints, VROOM provides an experience contextualised to each endpoint",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  },
  {
   "term": "Belonging",
   "definition": "A remote person's ability to be part of a space: acting in it with autonomy (moving, pointing, being aware of others) and being affiliated with the people in it.",
   "quote": "Given our emphasis on 'belonging' as comprised of autonomy and affinity",
   "location": "§1, p. 2"
  },
  {
   "term": "Uncanny Valley of Telepresence",
   "definition": "The authors' hypothesis, after Mori's Uncanny Valley. Past the turning point, unmet expectations make belonging drop:",
   "quote": "the higher the simulation level of a telepresence experience, or the more it tries to simulate or replicate actual presence, the greater the user's feeling of 'belonging to the space' , up to a turning point",
   "location": "§6, p. 22"
  },
  {
   "term": "XR Telepresence (VROOM)",
   "definition": "Remote presence that mixes augmented and virtual reality, with the local and remote person each given a different experience of the same encounter. VROOM is",
   "quote": "a bi-directional asymmetrical XR Telepresence system",
   "location": "§3, p. 6"
  },
  {
   "term": "Proprioception",
   "definition": "The sense of where one's body is. For remote users to feel they belong, a crucial step is that",
   "quote": "they transfer their sense of proprioception (the awareness of the position of movement) of their real body to the avatar/robot body",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 15"
  },
  {
   "term": "Deictic gestures",
   "definition": "The first of the gesture types the authors analyse:",
   "quote": "Deictic gestures are indicative or pointing movements",
   "location": "§5.3, p. 17"
  }
 ],
 "method": {
  "design": "Exploratory study. Pairs (one local, one remote) played a search game (Gather) and a word-guessing game (Heads Up) in two conditions, a standard Beam mobile robotic presence system and VROOM, in counterbalanced order with fixed roles. Followed by a semi-structured paired interview.",
  "prototype": "VROOM (Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings), a technology probe assembled from existing parts. The local person wears an AR headset (Microsoft HoloLens) and sees a life-size 3D avatar of the remote person standing over a Beam telepresence robot, whose screen is turned off. The avatar's face is made from a photo of the remote person. The remote person wears a VR headset showing a live 360° view from a camera on top of the robot, and sees their own avatar body from the shoulders down when they look down. They drive the robot with a thumbstick, and move the avatar's head and arms with their own head and two hand-held controllers. The avatar mirrors the remote person's head turns and arm movements, its mouth moves with their speech, and it plays walking, idle and blinking animations. Built in Unity, with printed markers on the robot so the headset can place the avatar. Compared with the standard Beam robot, which shows the remote person's face on a screen and is driven from a desktop app.",
  "prototypeFigure": 1,
  "setting": "Open-office space in the regional office of a global technology organisation.",
  "sample": "Ten pairs, 20 participants in total, aged 25-54 (M = 35, SD = 7.3). Eight women and 12 men. Mostly researchers and software engineers, with varied and mostly limited experience of VR and head-mounted displays.",
  "n": 20,
  "duration": "One session per pair: both game rounds plus an approximately 30-minute interview.",
  "analysis": "Open, axial and selective coding of interview transcripts, video-based interaction analysis of the sessions, and cross-referencing of interview codes with key video events."
 },
 "findings": [
  {
   "headline": "Pointing across the room got easier.",
   "summary": "In pairs playing search and word-guessing games, remote users moving VROOM's life-size avatar arms could point at things across the room much more easily than with the standard robot. The gestures were crude, though, and at close quarters the robot's ordinary 2D video conveyed finer gestures.",
   "quote": "the arm was extending out of my field of view, and it was just flailing around rather than going like that, because the fidelity of the control",
   "location": "§5.3, p. 17",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-3-p-17",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133 (§5.3, p. 17)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Head turns showed where they looked.",
   "summary": "Local users could tell where the remote person was looking from the avatar's head movements, which sometimes made up for gestures the avatar could not show.",
   "quote": "When I was saying, 'can you see that?' I could see that you [P5-RU] were looking up, and I thought, 'she has seen that.' So that was quite helpful.",
   "location": "§5.3, p. 18",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-3-p-18",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133 (§5.3, p. 18)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Many local users fell back on voice.",
   "summary": "Identification with the avatar was mixed. Some remote users recognised themselves in it. But its unnatural look, its lack of facial expression and the AR headset's narrow field of view led half the local users to rely mostly on the remote person's voice.",
   "quote": "I might as well have done [...] that task with my eyes closed because I was just listening to what he was saying.",
   "location": "§5.1, p. 14",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-1-p-14",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133 (§5.1, p. 14)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "A natural view, less confident driving.",
   "summary": "Remote users found VROOM's 360° headset view more immersive than the standard robot's screen, but drove less confidently. The standard robot's unnatural camera views, which show its edges and where it is heading, gave them a more predictable sense of the robot's body.",
   "quote": "Counter to our expectations, the unnaturalness in the Beam interface was actually more of an asset than the apparently natural view from the VROOM condition.",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 16",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-2-p-16",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133 (§5.2, p. 16)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Nobody knew what the other could see.",
   "summary": "Neither local nor remote users knew what their partner could see or express, so some gestures were missed or never attempted. Remote users also felt dependent on their local partners rather than equal, more so with VROOM than with the standard robot.",
   "quote": "My visual signal was much reduced, and I had less sense of how I could move and where it was safe to move the robot. So I just felt more like a dependent participant than an equal partner.",
   "location": "§5.4, p. 21",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-4-p-21",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133 (§5.4, p. 21)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "More presence, less belonging.",
   "summary": "Compared with the standard robot, VROOM imitated physical presence more closely. Yet it seemed to leave users with less sense that the remote person belonged in the room. The authors hypothesise this places it inside an Uncanny Valley of Telepresence. The authors' explanation:",
   "quote": "The illusion of 'being there' gives them higher expectations of their own abilities in the space, but once those expectations are not fulfilled, they become frustrated and feel more as if they are not meant to be there.",
   "location": "§6, p. 22",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s6-p-22",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133 (§6, p. 22)"
  }
 ],
 "questions": [
  {
   "question": "Can a remote person point and gesture through a telepresence robot?",
   "answer": "Better with a body than a screen. When ten pairs played games in an office, remote partners moving a life-size AR avatar overlaid on the robot could point across the room. Its head turns showed where they looked. But gestures were crude. Up close, the robot's video showed finer ones.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.3, p. 17",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-3-p-17"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.3, p. 18",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-3-p-18"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Is a more realistic telepresence system always better?",
   "answer": "Not necessarily. The authors hypothesise an 'Uncanny Valley of Telepresence'. Belonging rises as a system imitates physical presence more closely, until both sides expect more of the remote person than the system can deliver. Then belonging dips. Overcoming it means finding what makes belonging with others comfortable, not just imitating presence.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§6, p. 22",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s6-p-22"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Why is it hard to collaborate through a telepresence avatar?",
   "answer": "Because neither side knew what the other could see or express. Local partners' headsets had a narrow view that cut off the avatar's gestures, and remote users did not know how their gestures appeared, so some stopped gesturing. Remote users also felt dependent on their local partners rather than equal.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.1, p. 14",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-1-p-14"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.4, p. 21",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-4-p-21"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Why might an immersive view make a robot harder to drive?",
   "answer": "Seeing is not moving. A 360° headset view made remote users feel immersed, but they still steered a robot whose edges they could no longer see. The standard robot's odd but predictable camera views, which showed its edges and where it was heading, gave a better sense of its body.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 16",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.html#at-s5-2-p-16"
    }
   ]
  }
 ],
 "cites": [
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/hybrid-meetings-in-the-modern-workplace-stories-of-success-and-failure.html",
   "title": "Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure",
   "location": "p. 30"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/i-cant-get-round-recruiting-assistance-in-mobile-robotic-telepresence.html",
   "title": "“I can’t get round”: Recruiting Assistance in Mobile Robotic Telepresence",
   "location": "p. 26"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/reconfiguring-hybrid-meetings-moving-from-user-centered-design-to-meeting-centered-design.html",
   "title": "(Re)Configuring Hybrid Meetings: Moving from User-Centered Design to Meeting-Centered Design",
   "location": "p. 30"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html",
   "title": "VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings",
   "location": "p. 28"
  }
 ],
 "quantitative": [],
 "implications": [
  {
   "summary": "Let users create their own avatars, possibly less photorealistic ones. The aim is an agreed, appropriate representation of the self rather than a copy.",
   "quote": "if the point is to increase belonging, then pure imitation is not the threshold",
   "location": "§6.1, p. 23"
  },
  {
   "summary": "Consider enlarging or distorting the first-person view of one's own avatar body, as in first-person video games, so remote users keep a peripheral sense of their body."
  },
  {
   "summary": "Add richer expression through existing hand, finger, full-body and face tracking."
  },
  {
   "summary": "Let each side see how they appear to the other and peek into the other's view.",
   "quote": "To see the world from the other's point of view would provide a sense of reciprocity of perspectives that has eluded video-mediated communication for decades.",
   "location": "§6.2, p. 24"
  },
  {
   "summary": "Expect both specialised systems for specific contexts and modular, adaptable ones.",
   "quote": "We should not expect XR Telepresence to be one-size-fits-all.",
   "location": "§6.1, p. 24"
  }
 ],
 "limitations": [
  {
   "summary": "Short-term use in an artificial game activity. Future work should use more realistic tasks and longer-term, everyday use.",
   "quote": "This study only looked at short-term usage of the experimental VROOM and standard Beam interfaces in an artificially-constructed game activity",
   "location": "§6.3, p. 25"
  },
  {
   "summary": "VROOM was assembled from existing technologies not designed to work together, and was compared with a mature commercial robot, so the study was not a simple evaluation of which is better."
  },
  {
   "summary": "Some findings may reflect novelty effects. People might adapt over time."
  }
 ],
 "figures": [
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence/fig-1.webp",
   "caption": "Fig. 1. An overview of the VROOM system.",
   "alt": "VROOM: a remote user in a VR headset drives a telepresence robot via 360° video, and a local user in AR glasses sees the remote user's life-size avatar overlaid on the robot.",
   "location": "Fig. 1, p. 2",
   "credit": "Figure 1 from Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133"
  },
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence/fig-15.webp",
   "caption": "Fig. 15. The 'Uncanny Valley of Telepresence' hypothesis. While VROOM simulates in-person presence more than state-of-the-art tools like audio calling, video conferencing, and MRP, our findings suggest that it gave users less of a sense of 'belonging' to the space. Thus, VROOM is likely somewhere within the 'Uncanny Valley of Telepresence'.",
   "alt": "Illustrative curve of sense of belonging against simulation level: it rises from audio conferencing through video conferencing to the Beam robot, dips sharply where VROOM sits, then climbs steeply to physical in-person presence.",
   "location": "Fig. 15, p. 22",
   "credit": "Figure 15 from Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla N. Y. Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2021. Belonging There: VROOM-ing into the Uncanny Valley of XR Telepresence. 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449133"
  }
 ],
 "pageNumbersReferTo": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/belonging-there-vroom-ing-into-the-uncanny-valley-of-xr-telepresence.pdf",
 "verified": "2026-10-25",
 "studyFigure": {
  "about": "The opening figure on this paper's page, made for the site with AI assistance from this verified brief. It is not the paper's own figure. Evidence entries index this file's quantitative, findings and limitations arrays.",
  "study": {
   "kind": "single",
   "summary": "Exploratory study with ten pairs, 20 people, in an open office at a global technology organisation. In each pair, one local and one remote person played two games with a standard Beam telepresence robot and with VROOM.",
   "steps": [
    {
     "label": "Ten pairs",
     "detail": "Each pair had one local and one remote person, mostly researchers and software engineers with limited headset experience."
    },
    {
     "label": "Two games, two systems",
     "detail": "Pairs played a search game and a word guessing game with each system, in counterbalanced order."
    },
    {
     "label": "Paired interview",
     "detail": "Each pair then took part in a semi-structured interview of about 30 minutes."
    },
    {
     "label": "Analysis",
     "detail": "Interviews were coded and cross-referenced with key moments in video of the sessions."
    }
   ]
  },
  "tool": {
   "heading": "The system",
   "steps": [
    {
     "title": "An avatar on the robot",
     "text": "The local person wears a HoloLens augmented reality headset and sees a life-size 3D avatar of the remote person standing over a telepresence robot.",
     "part": true
    },
    {
     "title": "A 360° view",
     "text": "The remote person wears a virtual reality headset showing a live 360° view from a camera on top of the robot.",
     "part": true
    },
    {
     "title": "Drive and gesture",
     "text": "The remote person drives the robot with a thumbstick and moves the avatar's head and arms with their own head and hand controllers.",
     "part": true
    },
    {
     "title": "The avatar mirrors",
     "text": "The avatar copies head turns and arm movements, moves its mouth with speech, and plays walking, idle and blinking animations."
    }
   ],
   "note": "VROOM was a technology probe assembled from existing parts. The standard robot shows the remote person's face on a screen and is driven from a desktop app."
  },
  "findings": {
   "legend": null,
   "stages": [
    {
     "title": "Gesture, gaze and voice",
     "sub": "how local and remote users could show and see attention",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "In these sessions, remote users pointed across the room more easily with VROOM's avatar arms.",
       "detail": "The gestures were crude, though. At close quarters, the standard robot's ordinary video conveyed finer gestures.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[0]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Local users could tell where the remote person looked from the avatar's head turns.",
       "detail": "Head turns sometimes made up for gestures the avatar could not show.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[1]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Half the local users relied mostly on the remote person's voice.",
       "detail": "Reasons were the avatar's unnatural look, its lack of facial expression and the headset's narrow view. Some remote users recognised themselves in the avatar.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[2]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    },
    {
     "title": "Moving and belonging",
     "sub": "driving, mutual awareness and the sense of belonging in the room",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Remote users found VROOM's 360° view more immersive but drove less confidently.",
       "detail": "The standard robot's odd camera views showed its edges and heading, which gave remote users a more predictable sense of the robot's body.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[3]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Neither local nor remote users knew what the partner could see or express.",
       "detail": "Some gestures were missed or never tried. Remote users felt dependent on local partners rather than equal, more so with VROOM than the standard robot.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[4]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "The paper argues VROOM imitated presence more closely yet left less sense of belonging.",
       "detail": "The authors hypothesise an Uncanny Valley of Telepresence, where unmet expectations of being there leave the remote person feeling less meant to be there.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[5]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    }
   ]
  },
  "keyTerm": [
   "belonging",
   "uncanny valley of telepresence"
  ],
  "takeaway": "Telepresence can offer remote people the comforts of belonging, even in unnatural, asymmetric ways. Imitating presence closely may create an uncanny valley of telepresence, raising expectations the system cannot meet."
 }
}