Measuring flow experience in an immersive virtual environment for collaborative learning

In contexts other than immersive virtual environments, theoretical and empirical work has identified flow experience as a major factor in learning and human–computer interaction. Flow is defined as a ‘holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement’. We applied the concept of flow to modeling the experience of collaborative learning in an immersive virtual environment. The aims were, first, to psychometrically evaluate a measurement model of flow and, second, to test a structural model of flow. Pairs of small teams engaged in collaborative problem‐solving tasks while communicating by way of an immersive virtual environment. Flow was measured after each session, using Guo and Poole's inventory for measuring flow in human–computer interaction. In relation to the first aim, partial‐least‐squares analysis demonstrated strong evidence for the measurement model. In relation to the second aim, the structural model was supported: the effect of learning‐task characteristics on flow experience was mediated by its precursors, with extraneous variables held constant. It is reasoned that the experiment and resultant analysis of this work contributes to the development of measurement models and structural models of flow in immersive virtual environments.     

An Experimental Analysis of Experiential and Cognitive Variables in Web Navigation

Cognitive and experiential factors in human–computer interaction have been the focus of significant recent attention, but there is a lack of a much needed integrated approach to these issues. The current article proposes such an approach and applies this, combined with the person–task–artifact model (Finneran & Zhang, 2003 Finneran, C. and Zhang, P. 2003. A Person-Artefact-Task (PAT) model of flow antecedents in computer-mediated environments. International Journal of Human–Computer Studies, 59: 475–496. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), to the modeling of web navigation. In an experiment, artifact complexity and task complexity were manipulated. The effects of the experimental manipulations and intrinsic motivation on flow experience, task performance and task outcome were tested. The main effects of the manipulations were confirmed. Further analyses demonstrated that flow was a mediator of the effect of experimental manipulations on task performance, and task performance was a mediator of the effect of flow on task outcome. Overall, the results in the domain of web navigation that are presented here demonstrate the need for taking an integrated cognitive-experiential approach in the modeling of human–computer interaction.     

Reliance,trust and heuristics in judgmental forecasting

Judgmental forecasting gives light to the use of computers in human decision making. This paper reviews studies in judgmental forecasting focusing on what has been learned from human judgment and human–computer interaction. Available information was analyzed in the framework of three dimensions: reliance and trust on computer suggestions and heuristics employed by forecasters to produce forecasts. Results show that computer’s advice disuse is pervasive in forecasting; and the disuse increases with higher task complexity and lower perceived system performance. Explanations and past performance are good candidates to increase trust in computer’s advice, but the appropriate format to deliver this information is still controversial. Forecasters usually overforecast but report to prefer underforecast, which can lead to a cognitive dissonance and in turn to conflicting goals in the task. Heuristics research in time series forecasting indicates that forecasters heavily assess their own judgment, which in turn tend to be grounded in last outcomes and an overall evaluation of features like mean, trend and autocorrelation. It appears that heuristics not always lead to harmful biases for the forecast.     

Antecedents of flow in online shopping: a test of alternative models

Flow is an optimal state of experience that has been studied in various situations, including online environments. In such environments, it has been found to be positively related to exploratory behaviour, revisit and purchase intention, and positive attitude towards web sites. Based on flow theory, this study tests the complete structure of the flow model as it was originally formulated in an online shopping context. The role of the preconditions of flow is elaborated and the effect of web site complexity, an important interface design variable, on flow is examined. Results show that web site complexity affects flow through the mediating effects of the three preconditions of flow. Theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed.     

The role of user-centered AR instruction in improving novice spatial cognition in a high-precision procedural task

AR instruction is a kind of virtual information presented on a human–computer interface. It allows users to view the geometric state, spatial relationship, operation method, and other information involved in the physical task, to form the spatial cognition of the current interaction process. At present, AR instructions cannot support high-precision procedural tasks. The reason is that the existing research work is to use visual elements to express the spatial relationship of physical tasks, without considering transforming the long-term accumulated potential experience of advanced users into a series of effective visual features and interaction modes, to promote the new users to quickly conceive the task intention. In this paper, a user-centered AR instruction(UcAI) is defined and tested for the first time in a procedural task. The control experiment and behavior analysis of 30 participants designing two tasks with different operation precision show that UcAI is more beneficial to improve the user's spatial cognitive ability than conventional AR instruction. Especially in the high-precision operation task, UcAI plays an important role. Our research results have a certain guiding significance for advanced AR instruction design, which extends AR technology to physical tasks with high cognitive complexity.     

A complexity measure of task content in information‐input tasks

This article presents a measure of the task complexity a human operator faces while inputting information. The measure, called task‐content complexity (TCC), depends only on the complexity of the task content. A human‐computer information‐transmission model is proposed to clarify task complexity. It is shown that the model has three hierarchical levels of task complexities: the computer device (hardware), the computer software, and the task content. The model provides a definition of task content and the concept of the TCC measure. It is theoretically proven that the TCC measure is related to the task content, and is independent of the computer system used. Experiments based on graphical information‐input tasks confirm that the TCC measures of the same task using two different computer systems are almost equal. They also confirm the strong relationship between the TCC measure and the cognitive complexity of the task the operator performs. The TCC measure will be very useful in the design of computer tasks and in the evaluation and the usability rating of computer systems.     

New goals for HCI training: How to mix old and new skills in the trainee

The development of human‐computer interaction systems and the acquisition of skills associated with such systems typically occur in the context of previous experience. What is learned in one situation may facilitate or impede learning in another situation. The aim of this article is to discuss the role of experience in human‐computer interaction. The ACT? theory of skill acquisition and transfer is extended to account for the effects of old skills on the learning of new tasks. The extended model predicts a number of changes in performance that will occur when a new task involves the combination of old and new skills, including the suggestion that the learning rate of the new task will be slower than the rate at which the old skills were originally acquired. Two experiments are reported, the results of which support most of the model's predictions. The results also suggest that the minimum performance time of a task may be increased if performance of the task involves combining old and new skills. Implications of the effects of such combinations are considered with respect to the best methods of training for human‐computer interaction systems and the development of such systems.     

Designing interactive interfaces: theoretical consideration of the complexity of standards and guidelines,and the difference between evolving and formalised systems

To design an interactive interface with communicative ability is a highly constrained, complex and difficult task. In the design process, a designer has to consider numerous principles, standards, and guidelines. It is impossible for a human being to consciously keep track of the interconnections between so many variables, or to calculate all the consequences that may emerge from putting all of the principles, standards, and guidelines together. This is often demonstrated in interaction with complex systems such as control rooms, surveillance systems, aeroplanes, especially when they display states (patterns) with which the user is not familiar. This is where the problems start. No artefact can display on its interface what has not been determined beforehand. If they could, it would mean that designers had the ability to predict all possible future states that the artefact may exhibit. As many complex artefacts function in a dynamic environment, it is simply impossible. There are two reasons why it is impossible to predict future states of a complex system, and hence to design communicative interfaces in an intelligible way. The first concerns the relationship between consciousness and the five omnipresent mental factors: contact, feeling, discernment, intention and attention. Secondly we note the essential difference between evolving and formalised communication systems: formalised systems are incapable of handling proliferating complexity, whereas proliferating complexity is a prerequisite for human development. Even though people appreciate natural complexity, which allows them to select and integrate information freely, they have difficulties in handling formalised complexity, which requires particular kinds of experience and logic. Hence, it is important to start a discussion about what kinds of formalised systems we should design. If we want to control systems, then they cannot be too complex, as we have difficulties coping with formalised complexity. If we want to create truly flexible systems, then we have to skip the control requirement.     

Affective experience modeling based on interactive synergetic dependence in big data

Affective computing is important in human–computer interaction. Especially in interactive cloud computing within big data, affective modeling and analysis have extremely high complexity and uncertainty for emotional status as well as decreased computational accuracy. In this paper, an approach for affective experience evaluation in an interactive environment is presented to help enhance the significance of those findings. Based on a person-independent approach and the cooperative interaction as core factors, facial expression features and states as affective indicators are applied to do synergetic dependence evaluation and to construct a participant’s affective experience distribution map in interactive Big Data space. The resultant model from this methodology is potentially capable of analyzing the consistency between a participant’s inner emotional status and external facial expressions regardless of hidden emotions within interactive computing. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the rationality of the affective experience modeling approach outlined in this paper. The satisfactory results on real-time camera demonstrate an availability and validity comparable to the best results achieved through the facial expressions only from reality big data. It is suggested that the person-independent model with cooperative interaction and synergetic dependence evaluation has the characteristics to construct a participant’s affective experience distribution, and can accurately perform real-time analysis of affective experience consistency according to interactive big data. The affective experience distribution is considered as the most individual intelligent method for both an analysis model and affective computing, based on which we can further comprehend affective facial expression recognition and synthesis in interactive cloud computing.     

The dynamics of film-induced affect and its effect on the interaction with tablet PCs

Affective states have become a crucial part of human–computer interaction research. Many studies have analysed the impact of the technology on the users' affective states as a part of what is called user experience (UX). We consider the impact of antecedent affective states on interaction with a technological artefact. We induced positive and negative affective states using film clips. Then we analysed the impact of affects on the subsequent interaction with a tablet PC. Results show that positive and negative affective states have different emotional activation patterns. Positive affect was more sensitive for changes in tasks and experimental setting. In addition, these activation patterns affected behaviour for a short time only. These findings are discussed against the background of research into UX dynamics, dynamics of affect, and user-centred design research.     

Facets of simplicity for the smartphone interface: A structural model

Motivated by the need to develop an integrated measure of simplicity perception for a smartphone user interface, our research incorporated visual aesthetics, information design, and task complexity into an extended construct of simplicity. Drawn from three distinct domains of human–computer interaction design and related areas, the new development of a simplicity construct and measurement scales were then validated. The final measurement model consisted of six components: reduction, organization, component complexity, coordinative complexity, dynamic complexity, and visual aesthetics. The following phase aimed at verifying the relationship between simplicity perception of the interface and evaluations of user satisfaction. The hypothesis was accepted that user satisfaction was positively affected by simplicity perception and that the relationship between the two constructs was very strong. The findings imply that a simplified interface design of the task performance, information hierarchy, and visual display attributes contributes to positive satisfaction evaluations when users interact with their smartphone as they engage in communication, information search, and entertainment activities.     

An investigation of a human material handler on part flow in automated manufacturing systems

This paper presents a formal approach to resolve an important question concerning changes in the control of computerized manufacturing systems when a human operator is involved as a task-performing agent. It requires building a model of human functional specifications used in executing tasks and integrating it into a control scheme for the model. More importantly, analysis of control complexity needs to be conducted to build an effective control mechanism. In this paper, a human material handler is considered, and an assessment of part flow complexity affected by human tasks in a highly automated manufacturing system is presented. For this purpose, a formal model of human task-performing processes is proposed in terms of a part and location(s) of a task. A classification for human material handling tasks is presented based on the proposed model. Furthermore, human errors and the impact of human errors on part flow are considered. Part flow complexity of a manufacturing system from the control perspective is then investigated in terms of the human tasks and errors. A shop floor control example where a human operator performs material handling tasks is provided to illustrate the proposed model.     

Principles for Designing Interfaces Compatible With Human Information Processing

Stimulus–response compatibility has been a staple of human factors since the early 1950s, when it was established by Paul Fitts, one of the founders of human factors. The importance of maintaining spatial compatibility is indicated in textbooks, but maintaining compatibility in design is not a simple task, because there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. This article focuses on spatial compatibility and the more recently investigated affective compatibility, highlighting their implications for human–computer interaction. An overview of other cognitive compatibility principles and examples of their use in human–computer interaction is also provided. Advanced technology has increased the need for systematic consideration of compatibility phenomena in user interface design, and the article ends with a summary of key points for designers.     

Computer anxiety and perception of task complexity in learning programming-related skills

The purpose of the study was to investigate how computer anxiety is associated with computer task complexity in teaching and learning computer programming and related skills. The study also examined the effects of computer confidence and computer liking on user perception of task complexity. The study referred to the literature concerning whether enhancing computer experience may be the remedy of computer anxiety. Based on the data regarding different computer task levels, the study identified and tested the regression models using path analysis.The result of the study indicates that computer confidence had significant effects on user perception of task complexity while the effects of computer liking were minimal. At various task levels, increasing computer experience may help reduce computer anxiety. The individuals at a lower task level had less adequate estimation of task complexity than those at higher task levels, and thus were more likely to be subject to occurrence of computer anxiety. The study recommends that in teaching and learning computer programming and related skills, enhancing the knowledge and understanding of task complexity is necessary. It can help computer learners and users, especially at lower skill levels, in dealing with computer anxiety.     

Multi-site real-time tele-cooperation via the Internet

Robotic operations carried out via the Internet face several challenges and difficulties. These range from human–computer interfacing and human–robot interaction to overcoming random time delay and task synchronization. These limitations are intensified when multi-operators at multi-sites are collaboratively teleoperating multi-robots to achieve a certain task. In this paper, a new modeling and control method for Internet-based cooperative teleoperation is developed. Combining the Petri Net model and event-based planning and control theory, the new method provides an efficient way to model the concurrence and complexity of the Internet-based cooperative teleoperation. It also provides an efficient analysis tool to study the stability, transparency and synchronization of the system. Furthermore, the new modeling and control method enables us to design an Internet-based cooperative telerobotic system that is reliable, safe and intelligent. This new method has been experimentally implemented in a three-site test bed consisting of robotic laboratories in the USA, Hong Kong and Japan. The experimental results have verified the theoretical development, and further demonstrated the advantages of the new modeling and control method.     

Modeling of operators' emotion and task performance in a virtual driving environment

Emotional human–computer interactions are attracting increasing interest with the improvement in the available technology. Through presenting affective stimuli and empathic communication, computer agents are able to adjust to users' emotional states. As a result, users may produce better task performance. Existing studies have mainly focused on the effect of only a few basic emotions, such as happiness and frustration, on human performance. Furthermore, most research explored this issue from the psychological perspective. This paper presents an emotion and performance relation model in the context of vehicle driving. This general emotion–performance model is constructed on an arousal–valence plane and is not limited to basic emotions. Fifteen paid participants took part in two driving simulation experiments that induced 115 pairs of emotion–performance sample. These samples revealed the following: (1) driving performance has a downward U-shaped relationship with both intensities of arousal and valence. It deteriorates at extreme arousal and valence. (2) Optimal driving performance, corresponding to the appropriate emotional state, matches the “sweet spot” phenomenon of the engagement psychology. (3) Arousal and valence are not perfectly independent across the entire 2-D emotion plane. Extreme valence is likely to stimulate a high level of arousal, which, in turn, deteriorates task performance. The emotion–performance relation model proposed in the paper is useful in designing emotion-aware intelligent systems to predict and prevent task performance degradation at an early stage and throughout the human–computer interactions.     

SPH haptic interaction with multiple-fluid simulation

Physics-based fluid interaction plays an important role in computer animation, with wide applications in virtual reality, computer games, digital entertainment, etc. For example, in virtual reality education and games, we often need fluid interactions like acting as an alchemist to create a potion by stirring fluid in a crucible. The traditional input devices such as a mouse and keyboard can basically input 2D information without feedback. In recent years, the continuous development of haptic device not only can achieve six degrees-of-freedom input, but also can calculate the force in virtual scenes and feedback to the user to make a better virtual experience. How to use haptic device in different kinds of virtual fluid scenarios to provide better experience is an important issue in the field of virtual reality. On the other hand, the researches on multiple-fluid interaction especially based on smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method are very lacking. Therefore, we study the key techniques of haptic interaction with SPH multiple-fluid to compensate this defect in computer graphics community. Different from the single-phase flow, interaction with multiple-fluid flow has difficulties in the realization of properties of different phases. After adding the multiple-fluid simulation, it is also important to keep haptic interaction real time. Our research is based on the mixture model. We guarantee the authenticity of multiple-fluid mixing effect while changing the drift velocity solver to improve efficiency. We employ a unified particle model to achieve rigid body–liquid coupling, and use FIR filter to smooth feedback force to the haptic device. Our novel multiple-fluid haptic simulation can provide an interactive experience for mixing liquid in virtual reality.     

Participatory knowledge-management design: A semiotic approach

The aim of this paper is to present a design strategy for collaborative knowledge-management systems based on a semiotic approach. The contents and structure of experts' knowledge is highly dependent on professional or individual practice. Knowledge-management systems that support cooperation between experts from different (sub-)fields need to be situated and tailored to provide effective support even if the common aspects of the data need to be described by ontologies that are generic in respect to the sub-disciplines involved. To understand and approach this design problem, we apply a semiotic perspective to computer application and human–computer interaction. From a semiotic perspective, the computer application is both a message from the designer to the user about the structure of the problem domain, as well as about interaction with it, and a structured channel for the user's communication with herself, himself or other users of the software. Tailoring or “end-user development” – i.e. adapting the knowledge-management system to a specific (sub-)discipline, task or context – then refines both the message and adapts the structure of the interaction to the situated requirements.The essential idea of this paper is to define a new perspective for designing and developing interactive systems to support collaborative knowledge management. The key concept is to involve domain experts in participatory knowledge design for mapping and translating their professional models into the proper vocabularies, notations, and suitable visual structures for navigating among interface elements. To this end, the paper describes how our semiotic approach supports processes for representing, storing, accessing, and transferring knowledge through which the information architecture of an interactive system can be defined. Finally, the results of applying our approach to a real-world case in an archaeological context are presented.     

Integrating specification of human-computer interface with Jackson system development

Procedures for integrating task analysis and design of the human-computer interface (HCl) with a structured system development method, Jackson system development (JSD), are described. Process structure diagrams (PSDs), the major modelling notation of JSD, described tasks, and task specifications were evaluated for cognitive complexity. Task complexity analysis helped allocation and design of human tasks and to produce computer task support specifications. The cognitive dimension of task analysis highlighted the need for task support actions, especially information display support for working memory. Dialogue specification for a direct manipulation interface design was based on the JSD entity/event model from which the interaction metaphor, screen design, and permissible manipulations were derived. Further PSDs were constructed to specify interface object management processes. Preliminary evaluation of the method was carried out using JSD analysts. Results showed the method proved easy to learn even for non-HCl specialists.