Worlds Without Words
Ivan Bretan, Jussi Karlgren · 1994
This paper points out a deficiency in virtual worlds as they are envisioned today. Several of the more important aspects of human communicative behavior are missing, since there is no way to accommodate natural linguistic interaction with and through the interface. We point out some explicit cases where natural language interaction would be useful in a VR framework, and identify some areas where natural language interpretation actually might benefit from being situated in a highly formalized environment. Virtual Worlds As An Interactive Tool Virtual worlds are often envisioned as front end tools for a user to interact with applications – a simulated world with an emphasis on the “physical ” characteristics of the environment. In these cases, the focus in the research has been technically oriented towards how “physical” manipulation of objects can be done intuitively and robustly. The applications in mind have been, among others, simulations of actions and processes that would be difficult or expensive to organize in reality, and distributed applications, where agents – robots for instance – can be controlled from a distance.