An Eye Gaze Model for Dyadic Interaction in an Immersive Virtual Environment: Practice and Experience

This paper describes a behavioural model used to simulate realistic eye-gaze behaviour and body animations for avatars representing participants in a shared immersive virtual environment (IVE). The model was used in a study designed to explore the impact of avatar realism on the perceived quality of communication within a negotiation scenario. Our eye-gaze model was based on data and studies carried out on the behaviour of eye-gaze during faceto-face communication. The technical features of the model are reported here. Information about the motivation behind the study, experimental procedures and a full analysis of the results obtained are given in [17].