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Although telerehabilitation systems represent one of the most technologically appealing clinical solutions for the immediate future, they still present limitations that prevent their standardization. Here we propose an integrated approach that includes three key and novel factors: (a) fully immersive virtual environments, including virtual body representation and ownership; (b) multimodal interaction with remote people and virtual objects including haptic interaction; and (c) a physical representation of the patient at the hospital through embodiment agents (e.g., as a physical robot). The importance of secure and rapid communication between the nodes is also stressed and an example implemented solution is described. Finally, we discuss the proposed approach with reference to the existing literature and systems.

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Complex interactions occur in virtual reality systems, requiring the modelling of next-generation attention models to obtain believable virtual human animations. This paper presents a saliency model that is neither domain nor task specific, which is used to animate the gaze of virtual characters. A critical question is addressed: What types of saliency attract attention in virtual environments and how can they be weighted to drive an avatar's gaze? Saliency effects were measured as a function of their total frequency. Scores were then generated for each object in the field of view within each frame to determine the most salient object within the virtual environment. This paper compares the resulting saliency gaze model to tracked gaze, in which avatars' eyes are controlled by head-mounted mobile eye-trackers worn by human subjects, random gaze model informed by head-orientation for saccade generation, and static gaze featuring non-moving centered eyes. Results from the evaluation experiment and graphical analysis demonstrate a promising saliency gaze model that is not just believable and realistic but also target-relevant and adaptable to varying tasks. Furthermore, the saliency model does not use any prior knowledge of the content or description of the virtual scene.

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This paper presents experience of using our multimodal mixed reality telecommunication system to support remote acting rehearsal. The rehearsals involved two actors located in London and Barcelona, and a director in another location in London. This triadic audiovisual telecommunication was performed in a spatial and multimodal collaborative mixed reality environment based on the "destination-visitor" paradigm, which we define and motivate. We detail our heterogeneous system architecture, which spans over the three distributed and technologically-asymmetric sites, and features a range of capture, display, and transmission technologies. The actors' and director's experience of rehearsing a scene via the system are then discussed, exploring successes and failures of this heterogeneous form of telecollaboration.Overall, the common spatial frame of reference presented by the system to all parties was highly conducive to theatrical acting and directing, allowing blocking, gross gesture, and unambiguous instruction to be issued. The relative inexpressivity of the actors' embodiments was identified as the central limitation of the telecommunication, meaning that moments relying on performing and reacting to consequential facial expression and subtle gesture were less successful.

It is natural in a visual search to look at any objectthat is similar to the target so that it can be recognised and a decision made to end the search. Eye tracking technology offers an intimate and immediate way of interpreting users' behaviours to guide a computer search through large image databases. This paper describes experiments carried out to explore the relationship between gaze behaviour and a visual attention model that identifies regions of interest in image data. Results show that there is a difference in behaviour on images that do and do not contain a clear region of interest.