Collaborative Brain-Computer Interfaces (cBCIs) offer a promising mechanism to augment team decision-making, but existing approaches rely exclusively on evidence available only after a decision has been made and reported, such as reaction time or stated confidence. This limits their use to explaining or discounting a decision after the fact, rather than informing a team's response before it is finalised. We tested whether spatial-covariance EEG features could instead provide a genuinely pre-emptive signal of an operator's decision correctness, available within the response window itself, and whether such a signal depends on cognitive workload. Using a continuous virtual reality target-detection task, participants (N = 23) completed a within-subject workload manipulation (High vs. Low). At the team level, weighting votes by this pre-emptive neural signal, available before a response is committed, produced substantial accuracy gains on contested (evenly-split) trials under High Workload (57% to 88% as team size increased from 2 to 16), but was actively detrimental under Low Workload. Critically, this advantage held even against post-hoc behavioural signals: confidence was the strongest single team-level signal overall, but by definition cannot inform a decision still in progress, whereas the neural signal can. These findings indicate that EEG-based decision-reliability signals are not a general-purpose team augmentation tool, but a workload-conditional one, with clear implications for when and how cBCI systems should be deployed in operational teams.
Christopher Baker, Stephen Hinton, Tom Reed et al.· 0 citations
Mastering musical performance requires precise multisensory coordination, yet learners encounter a kinesthetic mismatch, which is a discrepancy between the internal perception of an action and the actual physiological state of the body. While multisensory Body Transformation Experiences (BTE) provide tools to bridge this gap, existing designs often focus on external correction rather than internal alignment. To address this, we propose the Somatic Alignment Mindset (SAM), a conceptual lens that integrates Taoist philosophy to shift the focus of HCI design from prescriptive feedback toward holistic embodied unity. By positioning technology as a reflective medium, SAM operationalizes the principles of Adaptation, Assessment, and Awareness to reconcile somatic discrepancies and foster deep, self-aligned musical mastery.
Ziyue Piao, Isabelle Cossette, Marcelo M. Wanderley· 0 citations
While breathing is essential to living and for sound production in some instruments, for pianists, it is often a hidden and automatic process, making it difficult to analyze or refine. A critical gap exists between data and awareness: while sensors record precise physical metrics, they fail to capture the performer's somatic experience. Conversely, the high cognitive load of performance makes it nearly impossible for musicians to recall their internal states with temporal precision. To address this, we present a system, Breathing Mirror, and associated methodology designed to externalize the pianist's internal somatic experience through three analytical lenses: a Baseline View (synchronized signals), a First-Person View (subjective recall), and an Interpersonal View (collaborative reflection).
Through a four-week longitudinal study with a skilled amateur pianist (35 years of experience), we evaluated the system's effectiveness by recording respiratory data using textile-integrated strain sensor belts. The results show that the Breathing Mirror reveals some patterns of breathing-music coupling and identifies critical blind spots where objective data diverges from subjective perception. Furthermore, we propose four somatic themes regarding the link between breathing and musical elements, offering a foundation for future large-scale validation across a broader range of pianists. This work provides a new way to study body signals, transforming breathing from an internal biological function into an articulate expressive parameter.
Ziyue Piao, Yohei Wada, Isabelle Cossette et al.· 0 citations
Interactive editors usually assume that users already know what to change. Yet an important interaction state comes earlier: a user may recognize that an artifact is not working without knowing what intervention to request. We call this the articulation gap. We introduce PROS (Proactive Refinement Of Scientific Posters), which separates epistemic initiative from behavioral authority: the system can surface source-grounded candidate problems, while users decide which become repair goals and whether resulting changes are committed. Accepted issues hand off to native-object PPTX editing with validation and reversible preview. We also introduce PROS-Bench, a source-linked collection of 120 papers and 320 editable PPTX posters, including a 120-poster matched primary core and a separate conference representation challenge. On the primary core, PROS achieves a mean VLM-rated stage-balanced diagnosis quality score of 67.2 on a 0-100 scale and 87.6% operator-verified target resolution among accepted diagnoses. Temporally blinded automated scoring yields a +22.7-point paper-macro accepted-target uplift, yet 14.8% of assessable accepted targets decline. This divergence shows why problem discovery, local resolution, and realized outcome should be evaluated separately. More broadly, intelligent editors can support problem discovery before a concrete edit request exists without taking authority over consequential change.
Xingda Lyu, Honglin Lu, Xinye Luo et al.· 0 citations
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Squeezing is one of the most natural forms of hand manipulation, inherently involving fine-grained, temporally evolving, per-finger flexion. In VR content creation, squeezing plays a unique role in enabling particular visual effects such as localized deformations and dynamic behaviors, e.g., bursting a Coke can or juicing a fruit, thereby expanding the expressive possibilities of VR content. However, existing techniques, such as 3D Gaussian splatting-based methods and diffusion-based video generation models, are limited in their ability to simulate fine-grained virtual squeezing effects. We introduce VirSqueezer, a framework designed to generate both localized deformations (primary effects) and complex squeezing dynamics, such as rupture and overflow (secondary effects). VirSqueezer captures squeezing control signals using a SenseGlove and provides the user with inferred resistance force feedback during the squeezing process. By estimating object contact areas, inferring physical properties, and simulating physical responses, VirSqueezer computes conditions that guide generation models for visual effect generation, ensuring both visual coherence and temporal synchronization with the simulation. Consequently, VirSqueezer enables the generation of physically realistic visual effects directly from continuous, fine-grained squeezing control signals. Our extensive evaluation demonstrates VirSqueezer's ability to reproduce realistic localized deformations, generate convincing visual dynamics, and maintain consistency in fine-grained squeezing controls.
Qian Zhang, Xiaoming Chen, Xiaorui Ma et al.· 0 citations
We study body-only, 12-class acted-emotion classification from skeleton motion under leave-performer-out (LPO) evaluation, a hard, underdetermined setting: chance is 8.3%, and a protocol-matched reproduced STGCN++ baseline reaches only 25.73 +/- 4.03% Macro-F1. We show that reliable gains come not from a new architecture but from combining eleven models with orthogonal error modes: under 10-fold LPO cross-validation on the labeled training performers, an equal-weight logit-mean ensemble reaches 36.80 +/- 4.00% per-fold Macro-F1, a protocol-matched +11.07 pp (+43% relative) over the same-split reproduced baseline. Our central contribution is a tested explanation suite: for a strong ensemble member, part-masking and counterfactual edits show (rather than assert) that its decisions depend on motion-grounded body-region evidence, and this region saliency aligns with rule-based Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) attributes far more than with classical kinematics: region-level saliency-LMA Spearman rho = +0.500 versus +0.033, roughly 15x, and the alignment holds for the submitted 11-way ensemble itself at rho = +0.517; the audit is post hoc and needs no retraining. The same suite faithfully reports a negative: within-window temporal saliency is diffuse rather than localized.
As large language models (LLMs) increasingly act as collaborative partners, human--AI alignment is often evaluated through explicit task success, accuracy, or reward optimization. Yet many collaborative settings depend on tacit understanding: whether an agent can align with a human's evaluative stance or representational priors without clear objectives, communication, or feedback. To study this capacity, we develop a spectrum-placement task inspired by the social party game Wavelength, in which humans and agents independently place concepts along subjective spectra. We operationalize the Tacit Understanding Index (TUX) as a pairwise behavioral measure of similarity between human and agent judgments, and evaluate it with 241 human participants and 200 profile-conditioned LLM agents across four models. We find that nearest human--agent pairs in trait space achieve significantly higher TUX, suggesting that tacit alignment is associated with person-level characteristics rather than reflecting only random similarity. Regression analyses show that TUX becomes more explainable as predictor sets become richer, with individual traits, decision-making styles, and confidence improving over aggregate trait-distance baselines. These findings suggest that TUX provides a measurable behavioral signal of human--LLM tacit understanding, while revealing the limits of profile-based conditioning for capturing deeper representational alignment.
Yueshen Li, Hanyi Min, Vedant Das Swain et al.· 0 citations
Despite the growing utility of Large Language Models (LLMs) for simulating human behavior, the extent to which these synthetic personas accurately reflect world and moral value systems across different cultural conditionings remains uncertain. This paper investigates the alignment of synthetic, culturally-grounded personas with established frameworks, specifically the World Values Survey (WVS), the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map, and Moral Foundations Theory. We conceptualize and produce LLM-generated personas based on a set of interpretable WVS-derived variables, and we examine the generated personas through three complementary lenses: positioning on the Inglehart-Welzel map, which unveils their interpretation reflecting stable differences across cultural conditionings; demographic-level consistency with the World Values Survey, where response distributions broadly track human group patterns; and moral profiles derived from a Moral Foundations questionnaire, which we analyze through a culture-to-morality mapping to characterize how moral responses vary across different cultural configurations. Our approach of culturally-grounded persona generation and analysis enables evaluation of cross-cultural structure and moral variation.
Candida M. Greco, Lucio La Cava, Andrea Tagarelli· 0 citations
Predictive modeling for clinical decision support requires both strong predictive performance and transparent, auditable, and human-reviewable decision logic. Although deep learning and tree-based ensemble methods can achieve high accuracy, their black-box nature remains a major obstacle to trustworthy clinical deployment. Moreover, clinical prediction often operates under practical constraints, including limited sample sizes, severe class imbalance, and feature evolution arising from changes in diagnostic criteria or clinical documentation practices. We propose Medical Heuristic Learning (MHL), a constrained paradigm for LLM-assisted rule learning. Rather than relying on updates to implicit model weights, MHL integrates statistical probes, medical knowledge probes, initial rule synthesis, and iterative rule optimization to construct an executable rule-based expert system. The resulting rule system is expressed entirely using the native logical and control-flow constructs of a programming language. Valid rule versions are recorded and retained along the search trajectory, making the decision logic explicit, interpretable, and auditable. MHL also supports continual learning by using previously validated rules as a starting point and iteratively revising them in response to updated feature information under data drift or feature evolution. MHL is not tied to any specific programming language. Comprehensive experiments on medical datasets show that MHL achieves predictive performance comparable to that of state-of-the-art methods, performs favorably in small-sample and highly imbalanced settings, and supports the transfer and adaptive revision of validated rules under feature evolution. Overall, these findings suggest that non-gradient-based heuristic systems offer an approach to balancing predictive performance and transparency in clinical decision support.
As generative AI capabilities expand, AI-driven virtual worlds face a growing architectural challenge. Users interact through in-world interfaces in multimodal ways, yet their requests demand fundamentally different AI backend models and computational resources. Embedding these capabilities directly into virtual world systems reduces extensibility, complicates maintenance, and limits the ability to coordinate services distributed across edge and cloud infrastructure. This paper presents an SLM-based Agent Orchestration Gateway, a lightweight runtime coordination mechanism that decouples a virtual world client from heterogeneous AI backends through intent-driven service routing. An edge-deployed SLM classifies the semantic intent of each user prompt, a configurable service registry validates and resolves the routing decision, and the selected backend is invoked transparently, enabling new AI capabilities to be introduced in the virtual world without modifying the client application. The gateway is implemented and evaluated within the InterwovenXR virtual museum testbed. The evaluation shows that compact SLMs can serve as reliable intent routers on edge hardware, and that task-specific fine-tuning can transform sub-billion-parameter models into practical, low-latency routers. A layered configuration pairing a fine-tuned sub billion-parameter model as router with a larger SLM for conversational response generation is shown to be deployable on mid-range edge hardware and more efficient than delegating both responsibilities to a single model. The findings show that SLMs can support practical AI service orchestration in virtual worlds and the work contributes an evaluated architecture for scalable, extensible, and edge-supported AI interaction, enabling virtual agents become access points to distributed generative AI services.
AI copilots represent a new generation of AI-powered systems designed to assist users, particularly knowledge workers and developers, in complex, context-rich tasks. As these systems become more embedded in daily workflows, personalization has emerged as a critical factor for improving usability, effectiveness, and user satisfaction. Central to this personalization is preference optimization: the system's ability to detect, interpret, and align with individual user preferences. While prior work in intelligent assistants and optimization algorithms is extensive, their intersection within AI copilots remains underexplored. This survey addresses that gap by examining how user preferences are operationalized in AI copilots. We investigate how preference signals are sourced, modeled across different interaction stages, and refined through feedback loops. Building on a comprehensive literature review, we define the concept of an AI copilot and introduce a taxonomy of preference optimization techniques across pre-, mid-, and post-interaction phases. Each technique is evaluated in terms of advantages, limitations, and design implications. By consolidating fragmented efforts across AI personalization, human-AI interaction, and language model adaptation, this work offers both a unified conceptual foundation and a practical design perspective for building user-aligned, persona-aware AI copilots that support end-to-end adaptability and deployment.
Saleh Afzoon, Ali Shahsavandi, Phuong Thao Huynh et al.· 0 citations
Existing Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) literature has focused on identifying and structuring errors, failures, conflicts, and knowledge issues (called in this work as contradictions) in domain-specific dialogue-based interactions. However, there is still lack of a formal computational framework to represent and define these contradictions, interoperable and usable across HRI and human-agent interaction (HAI) domains. Thus, this research project aims to capture, represent, and evaluate the notion of (1) dialogue-based collaborative interaction and (2) related contradictions in a foundational ontology. METHONTOLOGY, a systematic approach to build domain-independent ontologies was applied. In the conceptualisation stage of the presented ontology, concepts and models from Activity Theory were used. Preliminary results presented in this short article are: (i) Natural language definitions of dialogues and related contradictions in HRI, (ii) Set Theoretic definitions of dialogues and contradictions, and (iii) First Order Logic (FoL) formulation of the contradiction concepts and three novel principles guiding dialogue-based interactions between humans and robots. In summary, we report on ongoing work to develop a foundational ontology based on Activity Theory called Activity Theory-based foundational ontology (ATFOt) to capture and represent the notion of contradictions in HRI.
A new method, called CW-Net, translates the reasoning process of an autonomous vehicle’s AI system into understandable concepts that explain its behavior.
Known for his clear and elegant writing style, Bertsekas shaped fields from control and optimization to large-scale computation and artificial intelligence.
