Teaching training in a mixed-reality integrated learning environment

In this mixed-method study, we examined the design and potential impact of a mixed-reality integrated learning environment (MILE) in providing the simulated and immersive teaching practice for university teaching assistants. A virtual-reality-based learning platform integrating a Kinect-enabled sensorimotor interface was developed and used by twenty three university teaching assistants. Qualitative and quantitative data on the participants' participation behaviors, engagement, and perceptions were collected via video/screen recording, interview, surveys on teaching self-efficacy and sense of presence, and eye tracking. Results indicated that the MILE reinforced sense of presence and supported the performance of an ample range of virtual teaching tasks/actions with avatar-embodied live gesturing. The environmental fidelity in the mixed-reality learning spaces, the design and arrangement of virtual agents and avatars, and the affordance of embodied gesturing and walking are salient MILE design features that affected participants' sense of presence and their virtual teaching performance.     

Comparing the effects of representational tools in collaborative and individual inquiry learning

Constructing a representation in which students express their domain understanding can help them improve their knowledge. Many different representational formats can be used to express one’s domain understanding (e.g., concept maps, textual summaries, mathematical equations). The format can direct students’ attention to specific aspects of the subject matter. For example, creating a concept map can emphasize domain concepts and forming equations can stress arithmetical aspects. The focus of the current study was to examine the role of tools for constructing domain representations in collaborative inquiry learning. The study was driven by three questions. First, what are the effects of collaborative inquiry learning with representational tools on learning outcomes? Second, does format have differential effects on domain understanding? And third, does format have differential effects on students’ inclination to construct a representation? A pre-test post-test design was applied with 61 dyads in a (face-to-face) collaborative learning setting and 95 students in an individual setting. The participants worked on a learning task in a simulation-based learning environment equipped with a representational tool. The format of the tool was either conceptual or arithmetical or textual. Our results show that collaborative learners outperform individuals, in particular with regard to intuitive knowledge and situational knowledge. In the case of individuals a positive relation was observed between constructing a representation and learning outcomes, in particular situational knowledge. In general, the effects of format could not be linked directly to learning outcomes, but marked differences were found regarding students’ inclination to use or not use specific formats.     

User experimentation: an evaluation of velocity control techniques in immersive virtual environments

While many of the existing velocity control techniques are well designed, the techniques are often application-specific, making it difficult to compare their effectiveness. In this paper, we evaluate five known velocity control techniques using the same experimental settings. We compare the techniques based on the assumption that a good travel technique should be easy to learn and easy to use, should cause the user to have few collisions with the VE, should allow the user to complete tasks faster, and should promote better recollection of the environment afterwards. In our experiments, we ask twenty users to use each velocity control technique to navigate through virtual corridors while performing information-gathering tasks. In all cases, the users use pointing to indicate the direction of travel. We then measure the users’ ability to recollect the information they see in the VE, as well as how much time they spend in the VE and how often they collide with the virtual walls. After each test, we use questionnaires to evaluate the ease of learning and ease of use of the velocity control technique, and the users’ sense of presence in the environment. Each of the travel techniques is then evaluated based on the users’ performances in the VE and the results of their questionnaires.     

Is presence a technology issue? Some insights from cognitive sciences

The International Society of Presence Research, defines “presence” (a shortened version of the term “telepresence”) as a “psychological state in which even though part or all of an individual’s current experience is generated by and/or filtered through human-made technology, part or all of the individual’s perception fails to accurately acknowledge the role of the technology in the experience” (ISPR 2000, The concept of presence: explication statement. Accessed 15 Jan 2009). In this article, we will draw on the recent outcomes of cognitive sciences to offer a broader definition of presence, not related to technology only. Specifically, presence is described here as a core neuropsychological phenomenon whose goal is to produce a sense of agency and control: subjects are “present” if they are able to enact in an external world their intentions. This framework suggests that any environment, virtual or real, does not provide undifferentiated information, ready-made objects equal for everyone. It offers different opportunities and produces presence according to its ability in supporting the users and their intentions. The possible consequences of this approach for the development of presence-inducing virtual environments are also discussed.     

Personality variables and presence

The present study was designed to examine the correlation between five personality traits (empathy, imagination, immersive tendencies, dissociation tendencies and locus of control) and presence. Moreover, this study aimed to identify an optimal virtual reality user’s profile. Eighty-four students (66 women, 18 men) completed personality questionnaires, experienced exposure in a virtual environment and completed a presence questionnaire. Twenty-three women, among them 13 non-Jewish women and no men, neglected to look out the virtual window, and reported lower levels of presence. Presence correlated with immersive tendencies and empathy. However, empathy and internal locus of control were the best predictors for the sense of presence. A correlation between imagination and presence was only found in the group that avoided viewing the virtual window. This study revealed the importance of empathy and internal locus of control in the sense of presence. In addition, our findings suggest that the subject’s imagination has an important role when the virtual environment is restricted and that we must attend to cultural and gender-related factors when investigating therapy using virtual reality technology.     

Unpacking Tasks: The Fusion of New Technology with Instructional Work

This paper discusses how a new technology (designed to help pupils with learning about Shakespeare’s Macbeth) is introduced and integrated into existing classroom practices. It reports on the ways through which teachers and pupils figure out how to use the software as part of their classroom work. Since teaching and learning in classrooms are achieved in and through educational tasks (what teachers instruct pupils to do) the analysis explicates some notable features of a particular task (storyboarding one scene from the play). It is shown that both ‘setting the task’ and ‘following the task’ have to be locally and practically accomplished and that tasks can operate as a sense-making device for pupils’ activities. Furthermore, what the task ‘is’, is not entirely established through the teacher’s initial formulation, but progressively clarified through pupils’ subsequent work, and in turn ratified by the teacher.

The incorporation of challenge enhances the learning of chronology from a virtual display

In earlier studies investigating the learning of historical chronology, virtual fly-throughs were used in which successive historical events were represented by images on virtual screens, placed in temporal-spatial sequence. Undergraduate students benefited more than school-age children from virtual 3D (compared to 2D) training, perhaps because they took on the task as a challenge. In this study a modification of the earlier paradigm was used, in a game-like format, in which successive screens (paintings, representing epochs of art history) had to be memorised and anticipated during training, the participant’s score accumulating on the screen. Compared with PowerPoint and verbal-semantic training conditions, VE training resulted in more rapid learning, better recall of associated semantic information and error-free recall of the picture sequence. Possible applications of this paradigm for teaching were discussed.     

Natural perspective projections for head-mounted displays

The display units integrated in today's head-mounted displays (HMDs) provide only a limited field of view (FOV) to the virtual world. In order to present an undistorted view to the virtual environment (VE), the perspective projection used to render the VE has to be adjusted to the limitations caused by the HMD characteristics. In particular, the geometric field of view (GFOV), which defines the virtual aperture angle used for rendering of the 3D scene, is set up according to the display field of view (DFOV). A discrepancy between these two fields of view distorts the geometry of the VE in a way that either minifies or magnifies the imagery displayed to the user. It has been shown that this distortion has the potential to affect a user's perception of the virtual space, sense of presence, and performance on visual search tasks. In this paper, we analyze the user's perception of a VE displayed in a HMD, which is rendered with different GFOVs. We introduce a psychophysical calibration method to determine the HMD's actual field of view, which may vary from the nominal values specified by the manufacturer. Furthermore, we conducted two experiments to identify perspective projections for HMDs, which are identified as natural by subjects--even if these perspectives deviate from the perspectives that are inherently defined by the DFOV. In the first experiment, subjects had to adjust the GFOV for a rendered virtual laboratory such that their perception of the virtual replica matched the perception of the real laboratory, which they saw before the virtual one. In the second experiment, we displayed the same virtual laboratory, but restricted the viewing condition in the real world to simulate the limited viewing condition in a HMD environment. We found that subjects evaluate a GFOV as natural when it is larger than the actual DFOV of the HMD--in some cases up to 50 percent--even when subjects viewed the real space with a limited field of view.     

Multi-user mixed reality system ‘Gulliver’s World’: a case study on collaborative edutainment at the intersection of material and virtual worlds

This case study is about ‘Gulliver’s World’, a multi-user mixed reality environment that functions simultaneously as interactive edutainment platform and learning environment as well as flexible infrastructure for the expansion of mixed reality environments via innovations in technology and media art. As an exhibition project, the installation is characterized by a nonlinear exhibition concept that activates interaction between individual users and different modes of virtual reality as well as collaboration among the users themselves. At seven workstations, people of all age groups range along the Reality–Virtuality continuum while collaboratively creating 3D worlds. Results of these creation activities are interactive worlds at the nexus of theatre, digital film production and game environment. As a research project, ‘Gulliver’s World’ features multilevel infrastructure with exemplary content in which the latest insights and models to emerge from HCI research as well as concepts of mixed reality and virtual environments and their supporting technology are brought together and developed further.     

RoleVR: Multi-experience in immersive virtual reality between co-located HMD and non-HMD users

In this study, we present RoleVR, which can provide a similar high level of presence and multi experience for co-located head-mounted display (HMD) and Non-HMD users in an asymmetric virtual reality (VR) environment. The core of RoleVR is distinguishing the difference between the asymmetric environments (in terms of the system and the experience) of HMD and Non-HMD users to design optimized roles for these users. Here, we assign HMD user with spatial role that maximizes the sense of space based on three-dimensional visual information, and we assign Non-HMD user with temporal role in which they take control of communication and action, and understand the overall situation according to the flow of time. We also design an interaction for walking and a hand interface to enhance presence. This is achieved by understanding the user’s role, thereby improving the immersion. Finally, we created an asymmetric VR application that considers the interaction between roles and performed survey-based experiments to verify the basic presence and multi-experience of users in RoleVR. Through this process, we confirmed that RoleVR provides satisfactory presence for co-located HMD and Non-HMD users, and a variety of experiences specialized for each role.

     

Learning opponent’s preferences for effective negotiation: an approach based on concept learning

We consider automated negotiation as a process carried out by software agents to reach a consensus. To automate negotiation, we expect agents to understand their user’s preferences, generate offers that will satisfy their user, and decide whether counter offers are satisfactory. For this purpose, a crucial aspect is the treatment of preferences. An agent not only needs to understand its own user’s preferences, but also its opponent’s preferences so that agreements can be reached. Accordingly, this paper proposes a learning algorithm that can be used by a producer during negotiation to understand consumer’s needs and to offer services that respect consumer’s preferences. Our proposed algorithm is based on inductive learning but also incorporates the idea of revision. Thus, as the negotiation proceeds, a producer can revise its idea of the consumer’s preferences. The learning is enhanced with the use of ontologies so that similar service requests can be identified and treated similarly. Further, the algorithm is targeted to learning both conjunctive as well as disjunctive preferences. Hence, even if the consumer’s preferences are specified in complex ways, our algorithm can learn and guide the producer to create well-targeted offers. Further, our algorithm can detect whether some preferences cannot be satisfied early and thus consensus cannot be reached. Our experimental results show that the producer using our learning algorithm negotiates faster and more successfully with customers compared to several other algorithms.     

Mild stress stimuli built into a non-immersive virtual environment can elicit actual stress responses

The experience of Virtual Reality (VR) can lead to unwanted or wanted psychological stress reactions. Highly immersive VR games for instance utilise extreme, life-threatening, or dangerous situations to achieve those responses from their players. There is also sufficient evidence that in clinical settings and specific situations, such as fear of heights or post-traumatic stress, virtual stimuli can lead to perceived stress for clients. However, there is a gap in research targeting everyday, mild emotional stimuli, which are neither extreme nor specific and which are not presented in an immersive system. To what extent can common stimuli in a non-immersive virtual environment elicit actual stress reactions for its users? We developed a desktop VR system and evaluated it in a study with 54 participants. We could show that virtual stimuli in a common, domestic family environment led to a significant increase in perceived stress as measured by quantitative (self-reports) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews analysed with a General Inductive Approach (GIA)) responses. The results also showed that the introduction of virtual stimuli induced significantly higher levels of perceived workload and sense of presence and led to different physiological reactions. These findings have implications for the design and implementation of non-immersive VR systems.     

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.     

The gain and pain in taking the pilot seat: learning dynamics in a non immersive virtual solar system

This study describes and analyzes the learning interactions of nine high-school students’ free exploration of a virtual solar system (VSS). The VSS is a non-immersive three dimensional virtual environment based on real NASA planetary images. The computer screen serves as a “spacecraft’s window” for the learner to “fly” between objects, to change the system’s frame of reference and its pace. A systematic analysis of participants’ real-time observable interactions together with what they said revealed that each of them created an unique learning pattern within at least five different dimensions: (1) the cognitive dimension, (2) the affective dimension, (3) the navigation dimension, (4) the interface dimension, and (5) the assistance seeking dimension. The construction of meaning emerged as a non-linear process, which includes transitions between and within these dimensions. Three different styles of learning interactions were identified, suggesting that individual differences might be enhanced due to the unique VSS’ features. Overall, the VSS served as an enriching and motivational learning experience. The design of additional navigation tools and content scaffolding might help participants’ in building a sustained deep scientific understanding.     

Learning to trust in the competence and commitment of agents

For agents to collaborate in open multi-agent systems, each agent must trust in the other agents’ ability to complete tasks and willingness to cooperate. Agents need to decide between cooperative and opportunistic behavior based on their assessment of another agents’ trustworthiness. In particular, an agent can have two beliefs about a potential partner that tend to indicate trustworthiness: that the partner is competent and that the partner expects to engage in future interactions. This paper explores an approach that models competence as an agent’s probability of successfully performing an action, and models belief in future interactions as a discount factor. We evaluate the underlying decision framework’s performance given accurate knowledge of the model’s parameters in an evolutionary game setting. We then introduce a game-theoretic framework in which an agent can learn a model of another agent online, using the Harsanyi transformation. The learning agents evaluate a set of competing hypotheses about another agent during the simulated play of an indefinitely repeated game. The Harsanyi strategy is shown to demonstrate robust and successful online play against a variety of static, classic, and learning strategies in a variable-payoff Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma setting.     

The concept of strong and weak virtual reality

We approach the virtual reality phenomenon by studying its relationship to set theory. This approach offers a characterization of virtual reality in set theoretic terms, and we investigate the case where this is done using the wellfoundedness property. Our hypothesis is that non-wellfounded sets (so-called hypersets) give rise to a different quality of virtual reality than do familiar wellfounded sets. To elaborate this hypothesis, we describe virtual reality through Sommerhoff’s categories of first- and second-order self-awareness; introduced as necessary conditions for consciousness in terms of higher cognitive functions. We then propose a representation of first- and second-order self-awareness through sets, and assume that these sets, which we call events, originally form a collection of wellfounded sets. Strong virtual reality characterizes virtual reality environments which have the limited capacity to create only events associated with wellfounded sets. In contrast, the logically weaker and more general concept of weak virtual reality characterizes collections of virtual reality mediated events altogether forming an entirety larger than any collection of wellfounded sets. By giving reference to Aczel’s hyperset theory we indicate that this definition is not empty because hypersets encompass wellfounded sets already. Moreover, we argue that weak virtual reality could be realized in human history through continued progress in computer technology. Finally, within a more general framework, we use Baltag’s structural theory of sets (STS) to show that within this hyperset theory Sommerhoff’s first- and second-order self-awareness as well as both concepts of virtual reality admit a consistent mathematical representation. To illustrate our ideas, several examples and heuristic arguments are discussed.

A notion of task relatedness yielding provable multiple-task learning guarantees

The approach of learning multiple “related” tasks simultaneously has proven quite successful in practice; however, theoretical justification for this success has remained elusive. The starting point for previous work on multiple task learning has been that the tasks to be learned jointly are somehow “algorithmically related”, in the sense that the results of applying a specific learning algorithm to these tasks are assumed to be similar. We offer an alternative approach, defining relatedness of tasks on the basis of similarity between the example generating distributions that underlie these tasks. We provide a formal framework for this notion of task relatedness, which captures a sub-domain of the wide scope of issues in which one may apply a multiple task learning approach. Our notion of task similarity is relevant to a variety of real life multitask learning scenarios and allows the formal derivation of generalization bounds that are strictly stronger than the previously known bounds for both the learning-to-learn and the multitask learning scenarios. We give precise conditions under which our bounds guarantee generalization on the basis of smaller sample sizes than the standard single-task approach. Editors: Daniel Silver, Kristin Bennett, Richard Caruana. A preliminary version of this paper appears in the proceedings of COLT’03, (Ben-David and Schuller 2003).     

A private versus a public space: Anonymity and buying decorative symbolic goods for avatars in a virtual world

The virtual world has become a new channel in which people can contact with others, and organizations can provide service to their customers. Selling symbolic virtual goods has also emerged as a new economy in the virtual world. Such symbolic goods cannot facilitate people to accomplish any specific tasks; people buy them simply to decorate their avatars. This study is based on the theories of symbolic consumption, self-presentation, and computer-mediated environment, to investigate why people buy decorative symbolic goods in the virtual world. The results show that people buy symbolic virtual goods for both emotional and social values. While user perceived social presence and telepresence affect both social and emotional value of symbolic goods, individual self-presentation motivation affects only social value. Besides, anonymous users in the virtual world show behaviors that differ with non-anonymous ones.