Exploring Human Capability and Behaviors with Paralleled First Person View Sharing
What if we could directly connect our sight and share it with other people. Can we
extend our embodiment? complement our memory? and extend our perception?
image-1Our research explores how to expand the human capability by sharing the perspective of multiple people in real time. We provide a system that allows a person not only to see his own perspective but also to see other people’s perspectives at the same time. We conducted workshops focusing on two activities”Drawing with Faint memory”and“playing a tag game”.

Parallel Eyes system

Four shared paralleled perspective
Parallel Eyes system is a technology probe for creating a mutual visual shared parallel experience. Users wear a head mounted display which shows shared videos of each other’s perspectives as well as one’s own perspective in realtime.
Who watches whose sight.
For realtime observation, the reflection upon behaviors, and post analysis, we embedded a small IR camera and IR-LED into the head mounted smartphone goggles to capture the single eye image. Then we implemented an eye tracking system with standard computer vision pupil detection. This allows researchers and audience of the workshops to observe and interpret the relationship between behavior of participants and eye movement. Therefore, we can carefully observed what they do as they consciously and what is happening unconsciously.

Activity.1 / Drawing with faint memory

Can you draw “the Statue of Liberty”?  without any hints but others perspective.
No one would draw with complete confidence, even it’s well-known landmarks or popular animals. However, if we could share our perspective each other, can WE draw it with OUR memory? Our researches revealed that participants referred to each other and complemented the elements of each other’s drawings.
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Activity.2 / Game of tag

I see that I am chased.
We human usually have sense of own body with own perspective. However, what if technology one day connects our perspective each other, can we acquire and develop behaviors with new form of perspectives? We designed the “game of tag” with Parallel Eyes in which participants play a simple chasing game in a specially designed field. Observation of actual games revealed that people can develop their viewing behaviors to understand their own physical embodiment and spatial relationship with others in complex situations.
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