The paper "From Alien to Ally: Exploring Non-Verbal Communication with Non-Anthropomorphic Avatars in a Collaborative Escape Room", authored by Federico Espositi, Maurizio Vetere, and Andrea Bonarini from the Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering – Politecnico di Milano, received a prestigious Honorable Mention at the CHI 2025 – Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
CHI is one of the most important and selective international events in the field of human-computer interaction. This year, over 5,000 papers were submitted, with an acceptance rate of 25.1%. The recognition highlights the high quality of AIRLab’s research and serves as an incentive to continue exploring new frontiers in human-technology interaction.
The awarded study investigates non-verbal communication in collaborative contexts between humans and radically non-anthropomorphic avatars—an area still underexplored despite the growing presence of virtual reality and robotic technologies. The authors propose a system where two participants learn to communicate without words through a digital filter that alters their appearance. In a virtual escape room, the "Visitor" operates a non-anthropomorphic physical robot, while the "Controller," located remotely, takes control of it, perceiving the environment and their partner through virtual reality.
The study explores the design of the experience, the construction of the robot, and the development of the virtual environment, with particular focus on the morphological translation of the Visitor in VR. The results show that participants spontaneously developed effective communication strategies, and that the Controller naturally embodied their avatar—making this system a promising ground for future research on interaction, embodiment, and immersive technologies.