Ambient Suite: enhancing communication among multiple participants

We propose a room-shaped information environment called Ambient Suite that enhances communication among multiple participants. In Ambient Suite, the room itself works as both sensors to estimate the conversation states of participants and displays to present information to stimulate conversation. Such nonverbal cues as utterances, positions, and gestures are measured to sense participant states. The participants are surrounded by displays so that various types of information can be given based on their states. Although this system is adaptable to a wide range of situations where groups talk with each other, our implementation assumed standing-party situations as a typical case. Using this implementation, we experimentally evaluated the performance of input, output, and whether our system can actually stimulate conversation. The results showed that our system measured sensor data to recognize the conversational states, presented information, and adequately encouraged participant conversations.

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