Description
The evolution of multimedia systems is proceeding towards the introduction of multisensory stimuli, paving the way for mulsemedia experiences. While traditional multimedia content stimulates only two senses (i.e., vision and hearing), mulsemedia aims at involving a broader range of sensory modalities such as touch, smell, and taste. This new paradigm fosters greater user involvement during media experiences and enables more realistic interactions by stimulating the five sensory systems together, as occurs in real-life scenarios.
However, the definition of mulsemedia systems, both considering immersive experiences and standard video contents complemented with multi-sensory effects, entails unique challenges. The first issue to tackle concerns the definition of the multi-sensorial stimuli, whose realism has to be replicated through a proper design and rendering thanks to the use of suitable devices. Another challenge to consider is the evaluation of the stimuli quality both for defining objective quality metrics and for designing subjective experiments. Indeed, while the stimuli of subjective tests for images and videos are associated with standardized features (i.e., colorfulness, spatial information, and temporal information), the same does not hold for media which stimulate the other senses. Moreover, when moving to multi-sensory experiences, the inclusion of multiple stimuli requires the synchronization between the different data conveyed to the users in order to satisfy their expectations.
Given the multitude of open challenges, this special session aims at addressing different aspects of mulsemedia experiences, from the definition and rendering of the stimuli to the evaluation of the final user experience. Specifically, we welcome contributions on techniques aimed at creating mulsemedia stimuli for one or more of the underexplored senses (i.e., touch, smell, and taste). We are also interested in the design of mulsemedia experiences (either immersive or through standard displays), and in the study of synchronization issues across the sensory inputs. Finally, we aim at exploring novel methodologies for evaluating the quality of the mulsemedia content as well as of the user experience, including both objective metrics and subjective tests, also in the form of pilot studies.
Topics of Interest
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- Mulsemedia immersive experiences.
- Synchronization of mulsemedia contents.
- Cross-Sensory Interaction and Evaluation.
- Creation and rendering of mulsemedia contents.
- Quality evaluation for mulsemedia contents.
- Methodologies for evaluating QoE in mulsemedia experiences.
- User Behaviour and Cognitive Load in Multimodal experiences.
Organizers
- Sara Baldoni (sara.baldoni@unipd.it) University of Padova, Italy.
- Silvia Rossi (s.rossi@cwi.nl) Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Netherlands.