Research on technology of desktop virtualization based on SPICE protocol and its improvement solutions

Increasingly mature cloud computing technology promotes virtual desktop technology, which can solve many problems existing in traditional computing models. However, virtual desktop solutions introduce the thorny problem of how to deliver a real desktop experience to users, as if they are using it locally, especially when playing video. The SPICE (simple protocol for independent computing environments) virtual desktop solution provides several image compression algorithms to address this problem with the purpose of making virtual desktops as real as possible. Although different compression algorithms can contribute their own abilities to different images to a large extent, switching between them is a big problem that consumes a large amount of resources to detect the different type of image and also causes jitter of the virtual desktop. This paper proposes a new solution, called SPICEx, using the JPEG2000 compression algorithm with dynamic compression ratios to solve the problem and finally validates that the performance is better than that of SPICE. With better quality of user experience and also reducing bandwidth consumption, SPICEx solution is meaningful in virtual desktop fields and can be widely used.     

The influence of virtual presence: Effects on experienced cognitive load and learning outcomes in educational computer games

Does the immersive design of an educational gaming environment affect learners’ virtual presence and how much do they learn? Does virtual presence affect learning? This study tries to answer these questions by examining the differences in virtual presence and learning outcomes in two different computer-based multimedia environments: a gaming environment with high immersive design vs. hypertext learning environment with low immersive design. As the main focus, the effect of virtual presence on learning is also explained and tested. By identifying virtual presence as a variable that may determine learning, it is argued that computer gaming environments present a new challenge for researchers to investigate, particularly, the effects of virtual presence on the immersive design of games in order to help designers to predict which instructional configurations will maximize learning performance. In general, results revealed that the high-immersive gaming environment leads to the strongest form of virtual presence but also decreased learning. Although regression analyses indicate that virtual presence positively influences trivial- and non-trivial learning outcomes, learners who learned in a low-immersive environment outperformed the gaming group. A mediation analysis showed that the relation between virtual presence and non-trivial learning outcomes is partly mediated through increased cognitive load.     

Examining Game Transfer Phenomena in the Hybrid Reality Game,Ingress

ABSTRACT

Game Transfer Phenomena (GTP) is a common video gaming experience in which extended gameplay causes game-related automatic thoughts, involuntary behaviors and perceptions. Currently, there is little research examining GTP in location-based, augmented/hybrid reality (HR) gaming. Based on prior GTP research, HR gamers were predicted to experience all types of GTP while also experiencing GTP specific to HR gaming. 867 Ingress players responded to a survey examining the degree to which they experienced the types of GTP. 31 % of the sample was female and the average age was 36. Ingress players exhibited all types of GTP and were most likely to experience automatic thought process related to the game. Female Ingress players were significantly more likely to experience GTP than males and increases in age were associated with decreases in GTP. 18 % of respondents experienced HR-specific phenomena in which players unintentionally use physical actions in the real world to interact with virtual aspects of the game. Future augmented/HR research should examine the cognitive and physical components underlying HR-specific GTP and how gender and age are associated with experiencing this and GTP related to different platforms and media.     

Individual differences in virtual reality: Are spatial presence and spatial ability linked?

One aim of virtual reality technology is to immerse the user in a digital environment that is distinct from physical reality. Feeling spatially located in this digital environment is central to the experience and is more formally known as spatial presence. Experiences of spatial presence differ between individuals; prominent theories assume that these differences may, in part, be explained by differences in more general spatial abilities. Whilst there is some support for this claim with desktop systems, there is currently no direct empirical evidence to support this with more immersive technologies such as head-mounted displays (HMDs). In this study, participants completed three different measures of spatial ability before experiencing two virtual environments. These measures included a self-report of visuospatial imagery; the mental rotations test; and a test of topographical memory. After completing the measures, participants briefly experienced a virtual city and a virtual train ride through a HMD. The user’s head movements were tracked, and visual displays were updated to give the sense of a full 360° environment. After each experience, the participants reported how present they felt and the extent to which they had a mental model of the environment. Self-reports of imagery were positively correlated with reports of spatial presence, consistent with the previous literature. However, spatial presence was not related to performance on either of the more objective tests. Whilst this provides confirmatory evidence that self-reports of imagery can predict presence, it is still unclear which more basic spatial abilities, if any, could underlie this relationship.     

Cognitive and affective processes for learning science in immersive virtual reality

As immersive virtual reality (IVR) systems proliferate in classrooms, it is important to understand how they affect learning outcomes and the underlying affective and cognitive processes that may cause these outcomes. Proponents argue that IVR could improve learning by increasing positive affective and cognitive processing, thereby supporting improved performance on tests of learning outcome, whereas opponents of IVR contend that it could hurt learning by increasing distraction, thereby disrupting cognitive learning processes and leading to poorer learning outcomes. In a media comparison study, students viewed a biology lesson either as an interactive animated journey in IVR or as a slideshow on a desktop monitor. Those who viewed the IVR lesson performed significantly worse on transfer tests, reported higher emotional arousal, reported more extraneous cognitive load and showed less engagement based on EEG measures than those who viewed the slideshow lesson, with or without practice questions added to the lessons. Mediational analyses showed that the lower retention scores for the IVR lesson were related to an increase in self-reported extraneous cognitive load and emotional arousal. These results support the notion that immersive environments create high affective and cognitive distraction, which leads to poorer learning outcomes than desktop environments.     

Cybersickness during VR gaming undermines game enjoyment: A mediation model

Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have ushered in a new era of VR gaming. While VR gaming experience represents a burgeoning area of research within human-computer interaction circles, the role of cybersickness, physiological repercussions of VR exposure to users characterized by a multitude of symptoms, such as nausea, lightheadedness, and dizziness, in the effect of VR gaming on game enjoyment remains understudied. In two experiments, the current study proposed and tested a causal mediation model in which the effect of VR gaming on game enjoyment was mediated by the level of cybersickness experienced during the gameplay. Results from both experiments supported the proposed model and showed that increased cybersickness levels during VR gaming led to decreases in game enjoyment, indicating that cybersickness experienced during VR gaming undermines the enjoyment of the gaming experience. Results also revealed that compared to traditional desktop gaming, VR gaming invoked greater levels of cybersickness, but VR gaming did not lead to greater levels of game enjoyment. When the effect of cybersickness on game enjoyment was statistically removed, however, VR gaming was found to be more enjoyable. The current experiments provide preliminary evidence that cybersickness may hinder the enjoyment of VR gaming experience.     

State of the Art of Molecular Visualization in Immersive Virtual Environments

Visualization plays a crucial role in molecular and structural biology. It has been successfully applied to a variety of tasks, including structural analysis and interactive drug design. While some of the challenges in this area can be overcome with more advanced visualization and interaction techniques, others are challenging primarily due to the limitations of the hardware devices used to interact with the visualized content. Consequently, visualization researchers are increasingly trying to take advantage of new technologies to facilitate the work of domain scientists. Some typical problems associated with classic 2D interfaces, such as regular desktop computers, are a lack of natural spatial understanding and interaction, and a limited field of view. These problems could be solved by immersive virtual environments and corresponding hardware, such as virtual reality head-mounted displays. Thus, researchers are investigating the potential of immersive virtual environments in the field of molecular visualization. There is already a body of work ranging from educational approaches to protein visualization to applications for collaborative drug design. This review focuses on molecular visualization in immersive virtual environments as a whole, aiming to cover this area comprehensively. We divide the existing papers into different groups based on their application areas, and types of tasks performed. Furthermore, we also include a list of available software tools. We conclude the report with a discussion of potential future research on molecular visualization in immersive environments.     

The cognitive benefits of dynamic representations in the acquisition of spatial navigation skills

A representational theory of the mind suggests that human experiences and activities are underpinned by mental representations. This abstract task representation paradigm may explain a cognitive benefit of dynamic instructional visualisations over static alternative in the acquisition of novel procedural motor skills. In this sequel work, we explore and extend this view through empirical investigations of novel skill acquisitions in a separate but related domain of spatial navigation. We compare the post-learning virtual maze navigational performance of sixty novel learners across two groups. After controlling for spatial orientation ability and prior video gaming experience, participants that learned the task using dynamic instructional visualisations recorded significantly better performance measures than those in the static group. Additionally, within-group comparisons also show that the beneficial advantage of dynamic instructional visualisations over statics remained consistent across different task complexities. These findings provide further evidence to support the view that dynamic instructional visualisations afford more efficient transfer of novel procedural skills through computer based training than static visualisations. This has implications for instructional design especially when rapid novel situational awareness is desired such as in briefings for emergency firefighting or tactical military operations.     

Learning with desktop virtual reality: Low spatial ability learners are more positively affected

This study aims to verify the learning effectiveness of a desktop virtual reality (VR)-based learning environment, and to investigate the effects of desktop VR-based learning environment on learners with different spatial abilities. The learning outcome was measured cognitively through academic performance. A quasi pretest–posttest experimental design was employed for this study. A total of 431 high school students from four randomly selected schools participated in this study where they were randomly assigned to either experimental or control groups based on intact classes. Findings indicate a significant difference in the performance achievement between the two groups with students performed better using desktop virtual reality. A possible explanation is that the desktop virtual reality instructional intervention has helped to reduce extraneous cognitive load and engages learners in active processing of instructional material to increase germane cognitive load. A significant interaction effect was found between the learning mode and spatial ability with regard to the performance achievement. Further analysis shows a significant difference in the performance of low spatial ability learners in the experimental and control groups, but no statistically significant difference in the performance of high spatial learners in both groups. The results signify that low spatial ability learners' performance, compared with high spatial ability learners, appeared to be more positively affected by the desktop VR-based learning environment which is supported by the ability-as-compensator hypothesis, and can be explained by the cognitive load theory.     

Spatial representations of virtual mazes: the role of visual fidelity and individual differences

Twenty-four people learned three versions of a room-sized maze: a wire-frame desktop virtual environment (VE), a normal surface-rendered desktop VE, and a real-world maze. Differences among the mental representations formed from each environment were measured with pointing and distance estimation tasks in a real-world version of each maze. People were more accurate at pointing after having learned the real and wire-frame VE maze than the surface-rendered VE maze; however, this effect was small compared with the effect of individual differences. Differences in gender, spatial ability, and prior computer experience were significantly related to the ability to acquire spatial information from the desktop VE. There was a high correlation between spatial knowledge when it was measured in the VE and spatial knowledge measured in the real world. Actual or potential applications include the design of effective VE training systems.     

An evaluation of immersive viewing on spatial knowledge acquisition in spherical panoramic environments

We report the results of an experiment conducted to examine the effects of immersive viewing on a common spatial knowledge acquisition task of spatial updating task in a spherical panoramic environment (SPE). A spherical panoramic environment, such as Google Street View, is an environment that is comprised of spherical images captured at regular intervals in a real world setting augmented with virtual navigational aids such as paths, dynamic maps, and textual annotations. Participants navigated the National Mall area of Washington, DC, in Google Street View in one of two viewing conditions; desktop monitor or a head-mounted display with a head orientation tracker. In an exploration phase, participants were first asked to navigate and observe landmarks on a pre-specified path. Then, in a testing phase, participants were asked to travel the same path and to rotate their view in order to look in the direction of the perceived landmarks at certain waypoints. The angular difference between participants’ gaze directions and the landmark directions was recorded. We found no significant difference between the immersive and desktop viewing conditions on participants’ accuracy of direction to landmarks as well as no difference in their sense of presence scores. However, based on responses to a post-experiment questionnaire, participants in both conditions tended to use a cognitive or procedural technique to inform direction to landmarks. Taken together, these findings suggest that in both conditions where participants experience travel based on teleportation between waypoints, the visual cues available in the SPE, such as street signs, buildings and trees, seem to have a stronger influence in determining the directions to landmarks than the egocentric cues such as first-person perspective and natural head-coupled motion experienced in the immersive viewing condition.     

Swordplay: Innovating Game Development through VR

With the movement towards 3D input devices in gaming, we explored the use of 3D user interfaces in the context of Swordplay, an immersive sword-fighting and spell-casting game aimed toward casual gamers. Developed as part of a course on "innovating game development" at Brown University, Swordplay is an attempt to determine what types of interaction techniques could be useful with natural human expression in virtual 3D environments. The result is a fun, lightning-fast game intended to push the skills and dexterity of its users, similar to the popular button-mashing games of the early 1980s     

Individual differences and personality correlates of navigational performance in the virtual route learning task

Research on the mechanisms and processes underlying navigation has traditionally been limited by the practical problems of setting up and controlling navigation in a real-world setting. Thanks to advances in technology, a growing number of researchers are making use of computer-based virtual environments to draw inferences about real-world navigation. However, little research has been done on factors affecting human–computer interactions in navigation tasks. In this study female students completed a virtual route learning task and filled out a battery of questionnaires, which determined levels of computer experience, wayfinding anxiety, neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism and immersive tendencies as well as their preference for a route or survey strategy. Scores on personality traits and individual differences were then correlated with the time taken to complete the navigation task, the length of path travelled, the velocity of the virtual walk and the number of errors.Navigation performance was significantly influenced by wayfinding anxiety, psychoticism, involvement and overall immersive tendencies and was improved in those participants who adopted a survey strategy. In other words, navigation in virtual environments is effected not only by navigational strategy, but also an individual’s personality, and other factors such as their level of experience with computers. An understanding of these differences is crucial before performance in virtual environments can be generalised to real-world navigational performance.     

Immersive Multiplayer Games With Tangible and Physical Interaction

In this paper, we present a new immersive multiplayer game system developed for two different environments, namely, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). To evaluate our system, we developed three game applications-a first-person-shooter game (for VR and AR environments, respectively) and a sword game (for the AR environment). Our immersive system provides an intuitive way for users to interact with the VR or AR world by physically moving around the real world and aiming freely with tangible objects. This encourages physical interaction between players as they compete or collaborate with other players. Evaluation of our system consists of users' subjective opinions and their objective performances. Our design principles and evaluation results can be applied to similar immersive game applications based on AR/VR.     

Towards video-based immersive environments

Video provides a comprehensive visual record of environment activity over time. Thus, video data is an attractive source of information for the creation of virtual worlds which require some real-world fidelity. This paper describes the use of multiple streams of video data for the creation of immersive virtual environments. We outline our multiple perspective interactive video (MPI-Video) architecture which provides the infrastructure for the processing and analysis of multiple streams of video data. Our MPI-Video system performs automated analysis of the raw video and constructs a model of the environment and object activity within this environment. This model provides a comprehensive representation of the world monitored by the cameras which, in turn, can be used in the construction of a virtual world. In addition, using the information produced and maintained by the MPI-Video system, our immersive video system generates virtual video sequences. These are sequences of the dynamic environment from an arbitrary view point generated using the real camera data. Such sequences allow a user to navigate through the environment and provide a sense of immersion in the scene. We discuss results from our MPI-Video prototype, outline algorithms for the construction of virtual views and provide examples of a variety of such immersive video sequences.     

The effect of action video game experience on task-switching

There is now a substantial body of work demonstrating that action video game experience results in enhancements in a wide variety of perceptual skills. More recently, several groups have also demonstrated improvements in abilities that are more cognitive in nature, in particular, the ability to efficiently switch between tasks. In a series of four experiments, we add to this body of work, demonstrating that the action video game player advantage is not exclusively due to an ability to map manual responses onto arbitrary buttons, but rather generalizes to vocal responses, is not restricted to tasks that are perceptual in nature (e.g. respond to a physical dimension of the stimulus such as its color), but generalizes to more cognitive tasks (e.g. is a number odd or even), and is present whether the switch requires a goal-switch or only a motor switch. Finally, a training study establishes that the relationship between the reduction in switch cost and action game playing is causal.     

The influence of collaboration styles to children’s cognitive performance in digital problem-solving game “William Adventure”: A comparative case study

Since a large variety of digital games have been used in many fields for educational purposes, their real functions in learning have caught much attention as well. This study first defines learning characteristics of problem-solving digital games and their corresponding cognitive levels, then designs and develops a problem-solving game in accordance to the criteria. Tasks in the game context are inter-related to each other so that players need to critically and creatively think about problem solutions. Learners’ task analyses are performed to observe four elementary learners’ gaming paths, behaviors and cognitive activities, individually and collaboratively. System documentation, video recording, researcher observation, and interviews are conducted to analyze learners’ learning strategies and their cognitive performance during the gaming process.     

Training in virtual environments: transfer to real world tasks and equivalence to real task training

Virtual environments (VEs) are extensively used in training but there have been few rigorous scientific investigations of whether and how skills learned in a VE are transferred to the real world. This research aimed to measure and evaluate what is transferring from training a simple sensorimotor task in a VE to real world performance. In experiment 1, real world performances after virtual training, real training and no training were compared. Virtual and real training resulted in equivalent levels of post-training performance, both of which significantly exceeded task performance without training. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated whether virtual and real trained real world performances differed in their susceptibility to cognitive and motor interfering tasks (experiment 2) and in terms of spare attentional capacity to respond to stimuli and instructions which were not directly related to the task (experiment 3). The only significant difference found was that real task performance after training in a VE was less affected by concurrently performed interference tasks than was real task performance after training on the real task. This finding is discussed in terms of the cognitive load characteristics of virtual training. Virtual training therefore resulted in equivalent or even better real world performance than real training in this simple sensorimotor task, but this finding may not apply to other training tasks. Future research should be directed towards establishing a comprehensive knowledge of what is being transferred to real world performance in other tasks currently being trained in VEs and investigating the equivalence of virtual and real trained performances in these situations.     

Training in virtual environments: transfer to real world tasks and equivalence to real task training

Virtual environments (VEs) are extensively used in training but there have been few rigorous scientific investigations of whether and how skills learned in a VE are transferred to the real world. This research aimed to measure and evaluate what is transferring from training a simple sensorimotor task in a VE to real world performance. In experiment 1, real world performances after virtual training, real training and no training were compared. Virtual and real training resulted in equivalent levels of post-training performance, both of which significantly exceeded task performance without training. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated whether virtual and real trained real world performances differed in their susceptibility to cognitive and motor interfering tasks (experiment 2) and in terms of spare attentional capacity to respond to stimuli and instructions which were not directly related to the task (experiment 3). The only significant difference found was that real task performance after training in a VE was less affected by concurrently performed interference tasks than was real task performance after training on the real task. This finding is discussed in terms of the cognitive load characteristics of virtual training. Virtual training therefore resulted in equivalent or even better real world performance than real training in this simple sensorimotor task, but this finding may not apply to other training tasks. Future research should be directed towards establishing a comprehensive knowledge of what is being transferred to real world performance in other tasks currently being trained in VEs and investigating the equivalence of virtual and real trained performances in these situations.     

Large displays enhance optical flow cues and narrow the gender gap in 3-D virtual navigation

OBJECTIVE: Existing reports suggest that males significantly outperform females in navigating 3-D virtual environments. Although researchers have recognized that this may be attributable to males and females possessing different spatial abilities, most work has attempted to reduce the gender gap by providing more training for females. In this paper, we explore using large displays to narrow the gender gap within these tasks. BACKGROUND: While evaluating various interaction techniques, we found that large displays affording wider fields of view seemed to improve virtual navigation performance in general and, additionally, to narrow the gender gap that existed on standard desktop displays. METHOD: We conducted two experiments (32 and 22 participants) exploring the individual contributions of display and geometric fields of view to the observed effects as well as isolating factors explaining performance increases seen on the large displays. RESULTS: We show that wider fields of view on large displays not only increase performance of all users on average but also benefit females to such a degree as to allow them to perform as well as males do. We further demonstrate that these benefits can be attributed to better optical flow cues offered by the large displays. CONCLUSION: These findings provide a significant contribution, including recommendations for the improved presentation of 3-D environments, backed by empirical data demonstrating performance benefits during navigation tasks. APPLICATION. Results can be used to design systems that narrow the gender gap in domains such as teleoperation and virtual environments for entertainment, virtual training, or information visualization.