Faculty
Michiya Yamamoto
Major research activity
In human face to face communication, not only verbal messages but also nonverbal information plays an important role. By focusing on the importance of such embodiment in human interaction, we have been studying human interface for communication and interaction support. Development of the systems based on understanding such interactions is the main theme of our laboratory.
We have two important themes now: communication support via CG characters, and gaze-and-touch interaction. For CG character-based communication, we focused on communication support with make-believe play and proposed a real-space sharing "edutainment" system that allows its users to enjoy make-believe play. We have developed a prototype of a system in which we introduced distinctive CG characters and communication support functions to enhance user communication through a virtual environment, and confirmed the effectiveness of the system through an evaluation experiment.
The gaze-and-touch interaction expands human embodiment with its intuitive user interfaces. We have developed an eye-tracking pen display based on the stereo cameras and aspherical model of the cornea. The accuracy of the system was approximately 0.7° on average, which is sufficient for human interaction support. We have also developed mobile version of MobiGaze, and surface version of ETTI (Eye-Tracking Tabletop Interface).
In this way, we challenge to open up a way to understand how human interact and be touched with each other.
Major relevant publications
- Yamane, M., Yamamoto, M., and Watanabe, T. Development of a Real-Space Sharing Edutainment System based on Communication Support with Make-Believe Play, Proceedings of SICE Annual Conference 2011, 2571-2574 (2011)
- Nagamatsu, T., Yamamoto, M., and Watanabe, T. Development of eye-tracking pen display based on stereo bright pupil technique, Proceedings of the 2010 Symposium on Eye-Tracking Research & Applications, 165-168 (2010)
- Yamamoto, M., and Watanabe, T. Timing Control Effects of Utterance to Communicative Actions on Embodied Interaction with a Robot and CG Character. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 24, 1, 87-107 (2008)