[Air-L] Call for papers: Immersive Reality and Personalized User Experiences

[Catherine Sotirakou]

Dear colleagues,

Please allow me to share the following call for papers for a special issue
of the *Frontiers in Virtual Reality - Virtual Reality and Human
Behaviour. *

*Research Topic*: Immersive Reality and Personalized User Experiences
<https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/14702/immersive-reality-and-personalized-user-experiences>

About this Research Topic

The everlasting convergence of digital innovation and user experience has
upgraded the Immersive Reality (IR) technologies to a new multidimensional
communication medium that provides new opportunities, activities,
processes, and services. Researchers, designers and practitioners employ
various approaches and methodologies that may regard the technology or the
human more prominently in the creation process of high-fidelity IR
simulations that aim to achieve a sustainable state of presence for the
end-user. The big challenge is to build immersive spaces that consider
collectively intangible aspects influenced by the individual differences
and technology-related concepts; generating personalized experiences and
ensuring the expected engagement and satisfaction.

Immersive Reality (IR) technologies provide an unprecedented potential of
integrating the users’ physical reality with virtuality, when they execute
tasks and actions towards accomplishing specific goals. This
reality-virtuality continuum aims at enriching the users’ experience, view
and understanding by offering the opportunity to (a) visualize different
concepts in real time and interact intuitively with them in a simulation or
“hybrid” world, and (b) make information and knowledge more accessible
through experiential learning methods and techniques. During the years it
is evident that embracing a standard viewpoint on given users’ activities
in immersive spaces may not always facilitate ultimately the successful
attainment of presence and engagement, or even worse, there is a high risk
of overwhelming the users, creating confusion and frustration during
interaction. Hence, it is of paramount importance to appreciate the added
value of human-centered adaptation and personalization empowered by
artificial intelligence techniques and/or game-based/gamification mechanics
and methods that is also highly recognized in regard to more traditional
environments of interaction, as is the Web. Related applications and
systems use the human individual differences in their core models, track
and analyze user behavior, preferences, feedback, and characteristics to
make predictions or adjustments, delivering unique, personalized
experiences regarding the content presentation and navigation increasing
the users’ engagement, effectiveness and efficiency during tasks execution.

The main focus of this Research Topic lies in the cross-borders of the
aforementioned disciplines for designing and developing solutions that
adhere to:

(a) human-centered models and personalization mechanisms that will be able
to regulate information processing factors, perception and engagement of
users when interacting with substantial amount of information as well as to
create best-fit immersive experiences to the benefit of the unique user;

(b.) persuasive strategies and technologies for behavior change that can
automatically adapt the content and interaction process on the users’ goals
and tasks;

(c.) game-based or gamified elements, such as scoring, badges, timed
activities and rewards, helping improve motivation, concentration, learning
and positive attitude of users while accomplishing their goals; and

(d.) artificial intelligence algorithms and interaction principles through
the IR technologies that can handle the increasing complexity of data
structures by facilitating access to the right data at the right time,
intelligent support during exploration and analytics for predictive and
proactive actions; while at the same time reducing cognitive-load errors or
runtime experience problems.

This Research Topic aims at original work in the area of human-centered
immersive spaces, IR technologies and simulations of interaction with a
focus on human behavior at the individual or group level. It showcases
empirical, basic and applied research on the human behavior and IR dynamics
of the intuitive interaction between humans and technology, covering a
broad spectrum of domains like Education, Journalism and Communication,
Healthcare, Commerce, etc. Literature reviews that summarize the current
state of research scientific works on a relevant topic will also be
accepted.

Topics of Interest may include but are not limited to:

- Human Behavior Modeling and Artificial Intelligence for Personalization,
Persuasion, and Gamification in Immersive Spaces
- Novel Human-centered IR Interaction Concepts and User Interfaces
- Human-centered Intelligent Algorithms for IR Content Recommendation and
Delivery
- Persuasive Strategies and Technologies for Behavior Change in IR
Technologies
- Gamification Concepts and Techniques in Human-centered IR Technologies
- Security, Privacy and Ethical Issues in AI-enabled Human-centred IR
Technologies
- Simulation, Evaluation and Validation of Human-centred IR technologies
and Immersive Spaces
- Assessment of Attention, Distraction, Engagement, Immersion, and Presence
in Immersive Spaces
- Design and implementation of Human-centred IR technologies in domains
like Education, Journalism, Healthcare, Commerce, etc.


Keywords: Immersive Reality, Immersive Spaces, Virtual Reality, Augmented
Reality, Personalization, User Experience, Gamification, Artificial
Intelligence

*Abstract Deadline:* 21 Feb 21
*Manuscript Deadline: *31 May 21

Best wishes to all,

-- 

*Catherine Sotirakou*
Research Associate


Department of Communication and Media Studies
*School of Economics and Political Sciences*
*National & Kapodistrian University of Athens*