Immersive Multisensory Media: from Quality of Experience to Quality of Life

沉浸式通信旨在以模糊真实的和虚拟环境之间的界限的方式实现与远程人员和环境的自然体验和交互。今天，我们需要更有效的方式与远程人员进行通信。然而，现有的沉浸式技术和应用只依赖于两种感官：视觉和听觉。为了实现真正的沉浸式通信，我们需要涉及其他感官。想象一下，你正在看一部电影，在那里你可以感受到爆炸产生的热量，或者在电视广告中你可以闻到食物的味道。随着5G、触觉互联网和神经技术的进步，下一个十年将出现感官互联网革命，心灵、触觉、嗅觉、味觉、视觉和声音将融合在一起。最终，任何新的沉浸式技术的成功或失败都将取决于它提供的人类体验，而不是它使用的技术。人的因素，如存在感，沉浸感，晕机和认知状态都有助于用户的感知沉浸式媒体体验（IMEx）。反过来，这些因素的客观（工具）测量可以允许沉浸式内容和感官刺激实时更新，从而最大限度地提高每个用户的体验。然而，测量这些人为因素是非常具有挑战性的，这就是拟议的研究计划。特别是，确定了若干短期目标，并将其归为三个主题。首先，我们建议开发工具措施的几个因素，包括在场，沉浸，晕电脑，和情绪，然后衡量他们的整体感知视听IMEx的影响。我们提出了一个人工鲁棒的心理生理和行为指标，生物信号增强/压缩技术，和用户感知的机器学习算法的组合。将开发用于单个和多个用户协同工作的应用程序，从而建立在跨学科同步和任务性能方面的新兴超扫描创新之上。第二，我们建议扩大开发的工具，包括多感官沉浸式媒体，触觉和气味将结合在一起。最后，开发的算法将汇集在一起，并将开发两个多感官应用程序来改善加拿大人的生活质量：用于焦虑治疗的神经反馈和阿尔茨海默病进展监测。 拟议的研究计划将强调卓越的高素质人才（HQP）的培训，谁将是一个包容性，多样性和公平的培训环境的一部分。鉴于该计划的跨学科性质，HQP将接触到多感官信号处理，严肃游戏，人为因素和机器学习的混合，从而为他们提供当今竞争激烈的就业市场所需的技能和专业知识。该研究项目将为加拿大带来重大的经济、技术和社会效益。

Immersive communication aims to enable natural experiences and interactions with remote people and environments in ways that blur the line between real and virtual environments. Today, our need for more effective ways to communicate with remote people has never been greater. Existing immersive technologies and applications, however, rely only on two senses: vision and hearing. To enable true immersive communications, we need to involve other senses. Imagine yourself watching a movie where you feel the heat from an explosion or a TV ad where you can smell the food. With advances in 5G, the Tactile Internet, and neurotechnology, the next decade will see the Internet of Senses revolution, where mind, touch, smells, taste, sight, and sound will come together. Ultimately, the success or failure of any new immersive technology will rely on the human experience it provides, and not on the technology it uses. Human factors, such as sense of presence, immersion, cybersickness, and cognitive states all contribute to the user's perceived immersive media experience (IMEx). In turn, objective (instrumental) measurement of these factors could allow for immersive content and sensory stimulation to be updated in real-time, thus maximizing the per-user experience. Measurement of such human factors, however, is extremely challenging and this is where the proposed Research Program comes in. In particular, several short-term objectives have been defined, grouped under three main themes. First, we propose to develop instrumental measures of several factors, including presence, immersion, cybersickness, and emotion, and then gauge their effects on overall perceived audio-visual IMEx. We propose a combination of artifact-robust psychophysiological and behavioural metrics, biosignal enhancement/compression techniques, and user-aware machine learning algorithms. Applications for single and multiple users working collaboratively will be developed, thus building on emerging hyperscanning innovations in cross-subject synchrony and task performance. Second, we propose to expand the developed tools to encompass multisensory immersive media, where haptics and smells will be combined. Lastly, the developed algorithms will all come together and two multisensory applications to improve the quality of life of Canadians will be developed: neurofeedback for anxiety treatment and Alzheimer's disease progression monitoring. The proposed research program will emphasize excellence in training of highly qualified personnel (HQP), who will be part of an inclusive, diverse, and equitable training environment. Given the cross-disciplinary nature of the program, HQP will be exposed to a mix of multisensory signal processing, serious gaming, human factors, and machine learning, thus equipping them with skills and expertise that are in high demand in today's competitive job market. The research program will provide significant economical, technological and societal benefits to Canada.