SONICOM, EXPERIENCE, CAROUSEL, TOUCHLESS, and GuestXR (SECTG) are EU ‘sister projects’ that are funded under Horizon 2020 FET PROACT-EIC-07-2020 call and subtopic “Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction”. SECTG has set up a cross-collaboration plan that expands on the interdisciplinary and ambitious goals of the individual projects, with 5 main objectives:
1) To examine any relevant synergies and establish two-way communication and dissemination between the sister projects;
2) To promote the development of science and innovation ideas between the sister projects;
3) To support the creation of a strategic expert group on “Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction” that can influence and support the development of future legislation and funding opportunities aligned with this field;
4) To nurture the creation of future collaborations that are strategically aligned with the key areas identified and support them in identifying future funding opportunities; and
5) To identify and support stakeholder engagement for the research outputs developed in the sister projects to ensure enhanced project impact.
focused on virtual and augmented reality. With the help of artificial intelligence, it provides a yet-uncovered dimension of interpersonal communication.
Immersive audio is our everyday experience of being able to hear and interact with sounds around us. Simulating spatially located sounds in virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR) must be done in a unique way for each individual which is expensive and time-consuming, making it commercially unfeasible. Furthermore, the impact of immersive audio beyond perceptual metrics such as presence and localisation is still an unexplored area of research, specifically when related with social interaction, entering the behavioural and cognitive realms.SONICOM will revolutionise the way we interact socially within AR/VR environments and applications by leveraging methods from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to design a new generation of immersive audio technologies and techniques, specifically looking at personalisation and customisation of the audio rendering. Using a data-driven approach, it will explore, map and model how the physical characteristics of spatialised auditory stimuli can influence observable behavioural, physiological, kinematic, and psychophysical reactions of listeners within social interaction scenarios.Website link: www.sonicom.eu
Twitter(@SONICOMproject)
TOUCHLESS – Enabling users to receive digital touch sensations that evoke not only a functional response, but also an experiential one, whilst not having any physical contact with a device.
Our society is increasingly being deprived of social tactile interactions, due in part to increased virtualisation and the growth of digital networks, and recently magnified by the COVID-19 social distancing measures. The TOUCHLESS project will develop the next generation of touchless haptic technologies using neurocognitive models and a novel artificial intelligence (AI) framework.
Our ambition is to go beyond functional haptic technology (simple haptic notifications and feedback to discriminate between objects) and enable computer systems to intelligently recreate the experiences that were previously lost in the virtual transition.
Website link: www.touchlessai.com
Twitter(@Touchless_EU)
CAROUSEL paves the way for emergence of social- physical behaviour of digital characters by better understanding human body-language and being capable to interact autonomously with a group of people.
Website link: www.carouseldancing.org
The GuestXR project aims to create an immersive online social space through extended reality, where the focus is on the existence of a machine learning agent called “The Guest”, which can facilitate interaction between participants to help them achieve their intended goals.
The innovation seeks to help avert conflicts and cyberbullying in digital interaction environments, make it easier for people with communication problems to get involved and detect antisocial behaviour, among other similar issues.
Website link: https://guestxr.eu