The Turing Test for Telepresence

ABSTRACT

The quality of high-end videoconferencing systems has improved significantly over the last few years enabling a class of applications known as “telepresence” wherein the users engaged in a communication session experience a feeling of mutual presence in a shared virtual space. Telepresence systems have reached a maturity level that seriously challenges the old familiar truism that a face-to-face meeting is always better than a technology-mediated alternative. To explore the state of the art in telepresence technology and outline future opportunities, this paper proposes an optimality condition, expressed as a “Turing Test,” whereby the subjective experience of using a telepresence system is compared to the corresponding face-to-face situation. The requirements and challenges of designing a system passing such a Turing Test for telepresence are analyzed with respect to the limits of human perception, and the feasibility of achieving this goal with currently available or near future technology is discussed.

KEYWORDS

Telepresence, Quality of Experience, Videoconferencing, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality