MagHeart: Exploring Playful Avatar Co-Creation and Shared Heartbeats for Icebreaking in Hybrid Meetings

2026-02-20

AI Summary

This study addresses the social awkwardness and asymmetric participation often experienced by remote attendees in early-stage hybrid meetings due to a lack of informal interaction. To mitigate this, the authors propose a multimodal, symmetry-oriented icebreaking mechanism that combines collaborative construction of virtual avatars using LEGO bricks with real-time sharing of heart rate signals via a magnetic haptic device, thereby reframing initial interactions through gamified and embodied engagement. Quantitative and qualitative data gathered through situated exploration demonstrate that this approach significantly enhances remote participants’ anticipated engagement and sense of social presence. The work not only validates the potential of creative co-construction and abstract physiological feedback in hybrid collaboration but also surfaces critical challenges concerning privacy, distraction, and contextual appropriateness.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

Hybrid meetings often begin with social awkwardness and asymmetric participation, particularly for remote attendees who lack access to informal, co-present interaction. We present MagHeart, a multimodal system that explores symmetric icebreaking in hybrid meetings through playful LEGO-based avatar co-creation and a tangible magnetic device that represents a remote participant's heartbeat as an ambient presence cue. By combining creative co-creation with abstract bio-feedback, MagHeart rethinks how remote participants can become materially and perceptually present during meeting openings. We report findings from a scenario-based exploratory study combining quantitative and qualitative data, examining participants' anticipated engagement, perceived social presence, and future-use intentions from both co-located and remote perspectives. Our results highlight opportunities for playful, embodied icebreakers to support early hybrid interaction, while also surfacing tensions around privacy, distraction, and contextual appropriateness. This work contributes design insights and open questions for future hybrid meeting tools that balance playfulness, embodiment, and social sensitivity.

Problem

• hybrid meetings
• social awkwardness
• asymmetric participation
• remote presence
• icebreaking

Innovation

• hybrid meetings
• avatar co-creation
• heartbeat feedback
• embodied interaction
• social presence