The Turing Test for Telepresence
It addresses the problem of assessing telepresence quality for users in communication applications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing technology without introducing new methods or data.
This paper tackles the challenge of evaluating telepresence systems by proposing a Turing Test to compare their subjective experience to face-to-face meetings, analyzing requirements based on human perception limits and discussing feasibility with current or near-future technology.
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.