Language, Speech and Gesture for Virtual Reality

[Patrick Olivier (University of York)]

Special Issue of Virtual Reality

"Language, Speech and Gesture for Virtual Reality"

Guest Editors:

Steven K. Feiner, Columbia University, USA
Patrick Olivier, University of Newcastle, UK

One of the original aims of research in VR was the realisation of truly
natural interaction with 3D graphical worlds. Central to this goal are
facilities by which users and systems are linked through input and
output based on natural language, speech and gesture.

On the one hand, language-based interaction with VR and 3D graphics has
  progressed significantly from the discrete spoken commands and canned
alerts of early systems. Likewise, improved sensing and tracking
technologies, and the potential for unencumbered input, have led to a
renewed interest in gestural interfaces and the consideration of the
role of gesture and posture within VR.

A recent upsurge in interdisciplinary research, spanning psychology,
natural language processing, vision, speech and computer graphics, has
led to a number of significant projects incorporating language, speech
and gesture in VR.

This special issue of Virtual Reality is dedicated to issues in the use
of these three modalities in VR, and invites papers that consider (but
are not limited to) the following topics:

• speech input & output for VR
• natural language understanding for VR
• natural language generation for VR
• gestural interfaces to VR
• language, speech and graphics coordination
• multimodal fusion in VR
• evaluation of language, speech and gesture for VR
• applications of language, speech and gesture for VR

Papers will be peer-reviewed in accordance with the Journal’s normal
process. Papers submitted for consideration should be between 4500-6000
words in length (double-spaced) and should report original research or
applications.

Papers should be submitted in Word or PDF format, via e-mail to:

patrick at cs.york.ac.uk

General information concerning the Virtual Reality journal can be found
at its homepage:

http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/10055/

15 April 2004 – Call for papers.
15 July 2004 – Paper submission deadline.
15 September 2004 – Notification of acceptance.
15 November 2004 – Deadline for receipt of camera-ready papers.