Sven Mayer

Sven Mayer
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich | LMU · Institut für Informatik

Prof. Dr.

About

167
Publications
53,897
Reads
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2,337
Citations
Additional affiliations
October 2020 - present
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
May 2019 - September 2020
Carnegie Mellon University
Position
  • PostDoc Position
December 2016 - December 2017
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
Position
  • Researcher
Education
August 2008 - May 2014
Universität Stuttgart
Field of study
  • Computer Science

Publications

Publications (167)
Article
Full-text available
Mixed reality enables users to immerse themselves in high-workload interaction spaces like office work scenarios. We envision physiologically adaptive systems that can move users into different mixed reality manifestations, to improve their focus on the primary task. However, it is unclear which manifestation is most conducive for high productivity...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Future VR environments envision adaptive and personalized interactions. To this aim, attention detection in VR settings would allow for diverse applications and improved usability. However, attention-aware VR systems based on EEG data suffer from long training periods, hindering generalizability and widespread adoption. This work addresses the chal...
Preprint
Full-text available
Understanding the intentions of robots is essential for natural and seamless human-robot collaboration. Ensuring that robots have means for non-verbal communication is a basis for intuitive and implicit interaction. For this, we contribute an approach to elicit and design human-understandable robot expressions. We outline the approach in the contex...
Article
Today, users are constrained by binary choices when configuring permissions. These binary choices contrast with the complex data collected, limiting user control and transparency. For instance, weather applications do not need exact user locations when merely inquiring about local weather conditions. We envision sliders to empower users to fine-tun...
Article
Users frequently use their smartphones in combination with other smart devices, for example, when streaming music to smart speakers or controlling smart appliances. During these interconnected interactions, user data gets handled and processed by several entities that employ different data protection practices or are subject to different regulation...
Article
Rich user information is gained through user tracking and power mobile smartphone applications. Apps thereby become aware of the user and their context, enabling intelligent and adaptive applications. However, such data poses severe privacy risks. Although users are only partially aware of them, awareness increases with the proliferation of privacy...
Article
Full-text available
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly pervasive, it is essential that we understand the implications of bias in machine learning. Many developers rely on crowd workers to generate and annotate datasets for machine learning applications. However, this step risks embedding training data with labeler bias, leading to biased decision-making i...
Article
Full-text available
Mixed Reality allows us to integrate virtual and physical content into users' environments seamlessly. Yet, how this fusion affects perceptual and cognitive resources and our ability to find virtual or physical objects remains uncertain. Displaying virtual and physical information simultaneously might lead to divided attention and increased visual...
Article
Images and videos are widely used to elicit emotions; however, their visual appeal differs from real-world experiences. With virtual reality becoming more realistic, immersive, and interactive, we envision virtual environments to elicit emotions effectively, rapidly, and with high ecological validity. This work presents the first interactive virtua...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Future VR environments will sense users' context, enabling a wide range of intelligent interactions, thus enabling diverse applications and improving usability through attention-aware VR systems. However, attention-aware VR systems based on EEG data suffer from long training periods, hindering generalizability and widespread adoption. At the same t...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
While desktops and smartphones have established user interface standards, they are still lacking for virtual and augmented reality devices. Hands-free interaction for these devices is desirable. This paper explores utilizing eye and head tracking for interaction beyond buttons, in particular, selection in scroll lists. We conducted a user study wit...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Transitioning seamlessly from the real world into the digital world through the mixed reality continuum remains challenging. This paper investigates transitional design principles across the MR spectrum , anchored by a review of "The MagicBook", a pioneering work that introduced the concept of transitional interfaces to the HCI community. Employing...
Article
Full-text available
While Mixed Reality allows the seamless blending of digital content in users' surroundings, it is unclear if its fusion with physical information impacts users' perceptual and cognitive resources differently. While the fusion of digital and physical objects provides numerous opportunities to present additional information, it also introduces undesi...
Article
Computational notebooks like the Jupyter programming environment have been popular, particularly for developing data-driven applications. One of its main benefits is that it easily supports different programming languages with exchangeable kernels. Thus, it makes the user interface of computational notebooks broadly accessible. While their literate...
Article
Large language models like GPT and Codex drastically alter many daily tasks, including programming, where they can rapidly generate code from natural language or informal specifications. Thus, they will change what it means to be a programmer and how programmers act during software development. This work explores how AI assistance for code generati...
Preprint
Full-text available
Today, we see a drastic increase in LLM-based user interfaces to support users in various tasks. Also, in programming, we witness a productivity boost with features like LLM-supported code completion and conversational agents to generate code. In this work, we look at the future of computational notebooks by enriching them with LLM support. We prop...
Chapter
In a world increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence, it is more important than ever to consider the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. One key under-explored challenge is labeler bias — bias introduced by individuals who label datasets — which can create inherently biased datasets for training and subsequently lead to inaccurat...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Physiologically-adaptive Virtual Reality systems dynamically adjust virtual content based on users' physiological signals to enhance interaction and achieve specific goals. However, as different users' cognitive states may underlie multivariate physiological patterns, adaptive systems necessitate a multimodal evaluation to investigate the relations...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Affective computing improves rapidly, allowing systems to process human emotions. This enables systems such as conversational agents or social robots to show empathy toward users. While there are various established methods to measure the empathy of humans, there is no reliable and validated instrument to quantify the perceived empathy of interacti...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Recently, we saw a trend toward using physiological signals in interactive systems. These signals, offering deep insights into users' internal states and health, herald a new era for HCI. However, as this is an interdisciplinary approach, many challenges arise for HCI researchers, such as merging diverse disciplines, from understanding physiologica...
Preprint
Full-text available
Developed a VR adaptive system utilizing EEG correlates of external and internal attention to optimizing task performance and user engagement. • Demonstrated the effectiveness of online adaptation using EEG correlates of attention, resulting in efficient user model. • We adapted peripheral environmental factors rather than manipulating main task fe...
Article
Full-text available
Prior research explored ways to alert virtual reality users of bystanders entering the play area from afar. However, in confined social settings like sharing a couch with seatmates, bystanders' proxemic cues, such as distance, are limited during interruptions, posing challenges for proxemic-aware systems. To address this, we investigated three visu...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In the last decade, researchers contributed an increasing number of cross-reality systems and their evaluations. Going beyond individual technologies such as Virtual or Augmented Reality, these systems introduce novel approaches that help to solve relevant problems such as the integration of bystanders or physical objects. However, cross-reality sy...
Article
Full-text available
Smartphones provide various functions supporting users in their daily lives. However, the temptation of getting distracted and tuning out is high leading to so-called rabbit holes. To quantify rabbit hole behavior, we developed an Android tracking application that collects smartphone usage enriched with experience sampling questionnaires. We analyz...
Article
Full-text available
Immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) empower users to experience digital realities. Known as distinct technology classes, the lines between them are becoming increasingly blurry with recent technological advancements. New systems enable users to interact across technology classes or transition between them...
Article
Full-text available
Biocybernetic loops encompass users' state detection and system adaptation based on physiological signals. Current adaptive systems limit the adaptation to task features such as task difficulty or multitasking demands. However, virtual reality allows the manipulation of task-irrelevant elements in the environment. We present a physiologically adapt...
Article
Full-text available
Virtual reality experiences increasingly use physiological data for virtual environment adaptations to evaluate user experience and immersion. Previous research required complex medical-grade equipment to collect physiological data, limiting real-world applicability. To overcome this, we present SensCon for skin conductance and heart rate data acqu...
Article
Full-text available
Sedentary behavior is endemic in modern workplaces, contributing to negative physical and mental health outcomes. Although adjustable standing desks are increasing in popularity, people still avoid standing. We developed an open-source plug-and-play system to remotely control standing desks and investigated three system modes with a three-week in-t...
Preprint
Full-text available
Sedentary behavior is endemic in modern workplaces, contributing to negative physical and mental health outcomes. Although adjustable standing desks are increasing in popularity, people still avoid standing. We developed an open-source plug-and-play system to remotely control standing desks and investigated three system modes with a three-week in-t...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Physiologically-adaptive Virtual Reality can drive interactions and adjust virtual content to better fit users' needs and support specific goals. However, the complexity of psychophysiological inference hinders efficient adaptation as the relationship between cognitive and physiological features rarely show one-to-one correspondence. Therefore, it...
Preprint
Full-text available
Mixed Reality (MR) allows users to interact with digital objects in a physical environment, but several limitations have hampered widespread adoption. Physiologically adaptive systems detecting user's states can drive interaction and address these limitations. Here, we highlight potential usability and interaction limitations in MR and how physiolo...
Preprint
Full-text available
A pro-environmental attitude in the general population is essential to combat climate change. Society as a whole has the power to change economic processes through market demands and to exert pressure on policymakers - both are key social factors that currently undermine the goals of decarbonization. Creating long-lasting, sustainable attitudes is...
Preprint
Full-text available
Recently the field of Human-Robot Interaction gained popularity, due to the wide range of possibilities of how robots can support humans during daily tasks. One form of supportive robots are socially assistive robots which are specifically built for communicating with humans, e.g., as service robots or personal companions. As they understand humans...
Preprint
Full-text available
Human-in-the-loop optimization utilizes human expertise to guide machine optimizers iteratively and search for an optimal solution in a solution space. While prior empirical studies mainly investigated novices, we analyzed the impact of the levels of expertise on the outcome quality and corresponding subjective satisfaction. We conducted a study (N...
Preprint
Full-text available
In a world increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence, it is more important than ever to consider the ethical implications of artificial intelligence on humanity. One key under-explored challenge is labeler bias, which can create inherently biased datasets for training and subsequently lead to inaccurate or unfair decisions in healthcare, empl...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Dynamic balance is an essential skill for the human upright gait; therefore, regular balance training can improve postural control and reduce the risk of injury. Even slight variations in walking conditions like height or ground conditions can significantly impact walking performance. Virtual reality is used as a helpful tool to simulate such chall...
Preprint
Full-text available
Humans have been developing and playing musical instruments for millennia. With technological advancements, instruments were becoming ever more sophisticated. In recent decades computer-supported innovations have also been introduced in hardware design, usability, and aesthetics. One of the most commonly digitally augmented instruments is the piano...
Article
Full-text available
Humans have been developing and playing musical instruments for millennia. With technological advancements, instruments were becoming ever more sophisticated. In recent decades computer-supported innovations have also been introduced in hardware design, usability, and aesthetics. One of the most commonly digitally augmented instruments is the piano...
Article
Full-text available
Mid-air haptics allow bare-hand tactile stimulation; however, it has a constrained workspace, making it unsuitable for room-scale haptics. We present a novel approach to rendering mid-air haptic sensations in a large rendering volume by turning a static array into a dynamic array following the user's hand. We used a 6DOF robot to drive a haptic ult...
Presentation
Full-text available
Cross-Reality (CR) systems offer different levels of virtuality to their users, enabling them to either transition along the reality-virtuality continuum or collaborate with each other across different manifestations. Many Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) systems are inherently cross reality since the amount of augmentation of the physical w...
Article
Full-text available
While tangibles enrich the interaction with touchscreens, with projected capacitive screens being mainstream, the recognition possibilities of tangibles are nearly lost. Deep learning approaches to improve the recognition of conductive triangles require collecting huge amounts of data and domain-specific knowledge for hyperparameter tuning. To over...
Article
Full-text available
Today, adaptive mobile applications use mobile sensing and user tracking, allowing for adaptation to the users' context and needs. This raises several privacy concerns. Privacy dashboards provide transparency and sharing control; however, their impact on the users' behavior is unclear. To shed light on the effects of (a) transparency and (b) contro...
Article
Full-text available
As ubiquitous computing brings sensors and actuators directly into our homes, they introduce privacy concerns for the owners and bystanders. However, privacy concerns may vary among devices and depend on the bystanders' social relation to the owner. In this work, we hypothesize 1) that bystanders assign more privacy concerns to smart home devices t...
Article
Full-text available
With increasing complexity in visual computing tasks, a single device may not be sufficient to adequately support the user’s workflow. Here, we can employ multi-device ecologies such as cross-device interaction, where a workflow can be split across multiple devices, each dedicated to a specific role. But what makes these multi-device ecologies comp...
Article
Full-text available
Adaptive visualization and interfaces pervade our everyday tasks to improve interaction from the point of view of user performance and experience. This approach allows using several user inputs, whether physiological , behavioral, qualitative, or multimodal combinations , to enhance the interaction. Due to the multitude of approaches, we outline th...
Preprint
Full-text available
A growing number of wearable devices is becoming increasingly non-invasive, readily available, and versatile for measuring different physiological signals. This renders them ideal for inferring the emotional states of their users. Despite the success of wearable devices in recent emotion studies, there are still several challenges to be addressed....
Preprint
Full-text available
Interactive AI systems increasingly employ a human-in-the-loop strategy. This creates new challenges for the HCI community when designing such systems. We reveal and investigate some of these challenges in a case study with an industry partner, and developed a prototype human-in-the-loop system for preference-guided 3D model processing. Two 3D arti...
Presentation
Today virtual reality applications mainly allow consumers to en- gage in immersive alternative realities for fun and entertainment. However, researchers and therapists investigate their use for skill improvement and even fear prevention. In this work, we focus on balance training in virtual reality, which is directly linked to the fear of heights....
Article
Full-text available
Virtual reality is increasingly used for tasks such as work and education. Thus, rendering scenarios that do not interfere with such goals and deplete user experience are becoming progressively more relevant. We present a physiologically adaptive system that optimizes the virtual environment based on physiological arousal, i.e., electrodermal activ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Cross-reality systems empower users to transition along the reality-virtuality continuum or collaborate with others experiencing different manifestations of it. However, prototyping these systems is challenging, as it requires sophisticated technical skills, time, and often expensive hardware. We present VRception, a concept and toolkit for quick a...
Conference Paper
Robots allow humans to offload repetitive tasks to be executed with high precision. However, when we enter the space of collaboration with robots, this opens up the great potential to directly support humans. In the future, we envision that cooperative robots are integrated into kitchens as every other cooking appliance. In this work, we present se...