Investigating the Impact of Voice-only and Embodied Conversational Virtual Agents on Mixed Reality Puzzle Solving

Explore a 10-minute IEEE conference talk examining how different types of Conversational Virtual Agents (CVAs) affect Mixed Reality puzzle solving. The presentation, part of the "Immersive applications and 3DUI" session, details a study with 34 participants comparing voice-only and embodied CVAs as assistants for a 2D physical puzzle. Learn how researchers from Universita di Bologna and Universität Hamburg discovered that while both agent types received similar numbers of user queries, the voice-only CVA significantly improved task efficiency and reduced reported user effort compared to the embodied version. This research provides valuable insights for designing effective AI assistants in mixed reality environments.