Video Conference Gaze Tracking Visual Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
In multi-party video conferencing, eye gaze direction is lost due to participants looking directly at their monitors, leading to a lack of social translucency and misperception of attention, resulting in excessive attention being felt by all participants.
Innovation Solution
A method to visualize and differentiate the representations of conference participants based on their gazing direction, using eye gaze tracking to identify and modify the visual representation of participants of interest, providing awareness of focus and attention through resolution and color changes, and signaling mutual gaze.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If all participants look directly at their monitors to see other people, then visibility of participants is improved, but eye gaze direction information is lost and social translucency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces visual feedback by overlaying indicators on participant representations to show where they are looking. The gaze indicator provides real-time feedback about the focal point of each participant's attention, allowing users to understand social dynamics without changing their viewing behavior. This resolves the contradiction by preserving direct monitor viewing while recovering lost gaze information through visual feedback cues.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary visual indicator layer between the participant representations and the user's perception. This intermediary element (the gaze indicator overlay) mediates the transmission of gaze direction information without requiring participants to change their viewing behavior. The indicator acts as a mediator that translates internal gaze direction into visible social information.
2Loss of information
If visual representations of all participants are displayed to provide awareness, then social translucency is improved, but the display becomes cluttered and distracting
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by differentiating the visual representation of the focal point participant from other participants. The participant being looked at receives enhanced visual treatment (such as highlighting or framing) while other participants maintain standard representation. This allows the display to remain relatively simple while providing targeted information about social attention dynamics.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs color changes as a visual differentiation mechanism. The focal point participant's representation is highlighted through color changes or intensity modulation, making it easily distinguishable from other participants. This uses visual salience to convey social information without requiring additional clutter or complex display elements.
3Loss of information
If visual differentiation is applied to indicate gaze focus, then awareness of attention is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial action by differentiating only the focal point participant's representation rather than all participants. This selective differentiation provides sufficient social awareness information while minimizing processing complexity. The system performs just enough visual differentiation to convey the essential social dynamic (who is being looked at) without excessive processing overhead.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for conducting a video conference, said method comprising: visualizing representations of a plurality of conference participants on a display of a terminal; detecting a gazing direction of a user of said terminal; determining a first observation relationship between said user and a first one of said conference participants (U1), said first one of said conference participants (U1) being identified by correlating said detected gazing direction with a presently observed one of said visualized representations; and visually differentiating said representation of said first one of said conference participants (U1).