Assessing the influence of repeated exposures and mental stress on human wayfinding performance in indoor environments using virtual reality technology

This study aimed to examine the effect of repeated exposures to indoor environments on people’s indoor wayfinding performance, both under normal condition and during fire emergency which could induce significant mental stress. Indoor wayfinding experiments were conducted in an immersive virtual museum developed using virtual reality technologies. Participants of the experiments were divided into three groups, who participated in one, two and three trials, respectively. Those who participated in more than one trial were given an interval of two weeks between two consecutive trials. Each trial of the experiment included a treasure hunting task and an egress task. Participants were presented with a virtual fire emergency during the egress task of their last trial. Data of wayfinding performance measures of the participants, as well as their physiological and emotional responses, sense of direction, wayfinding anxiety and simulator sickness were collected and analyzed. The results revealed significant positive impact of repeated exposure on participants’ wayfinding performance, which resulted in a decrease in the time needed to complete the treasure hunting task. The results also revealed significant negative impact of mental stressed caused by the fire emergency on participants’ wayfinding performance, which led to increased travel time and distance during egress. Such negative impact of stress, however, could be noticeably diminished by the repeated exposures, showing significant interaction effect between these two factors.     

Motivation,engagement, and performance across multiple virtual reality sessions and levels of immersion

This study investigated changes in learners' motivation, engagement, performance, and spatial reasoning over time and across different levels of virtual reality (VR) immersion. Undergraduate participants explored a virtual solar system via a moderately immersive or highly immersive VR platform over three sessions. In a third condition, participants initially learned with moderate immersion and transitioned to higher immersion after the second session. Following research on novelty effects, we explored whether subjective experiences and performance would decline over time (e.g., decreasing motivation or performance) as participants became familiar with the virtual environment and tools. However, we hypothesized that transitional immersion (i.e., switching from moderate to higher immersion) might lead to a renewed sense of novelty. Results suggested that both moderate and higher levels of immersion were motivating, engaging, and supportive of learning. In contrast to predictions based on novelty effects, these outcomes did not decline overall as learners gained familiarity with the systems. However, transitional immersion emerged as a promising and testable pedagogical approach for future VR education. All participants also showed gains in spatial reasoning.     

Assessing mental workload in virtual reality based EOT crane operations: A multi-measure approach

BackgroundEye-movement metrics and subjective workload measures are extensively used to determine mental workload of participants. The aim of this study was to assess Electric overhead travelling (EOT) crane operators’ mental workload variability based on eye movement metrics such as fixation frequency, fixation duration, saccade duration, saccade amplitude, and fixation/saccade ratio during EOT crane operations in virtual reality (VR) based EOT crane simulator.MethodsA 2^k (k = 3) factorial experiment with factors namely, hazardous scenario, activity level, and trial was designed and conducted to demonstrate the proposed assessment approach. Throughout the experiment, we recorded the eye movements of 12 EOT crane operators of a steel industry of authors’ country. Post experiment, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration task load index (NASA-TLX) was adopted as a subjective workload measure and run time of task completion was recorded. Eye-movement metrics, subjective workload measure, run time were tested with multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and three way repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA).ResultsAt the level of α = 0.05, the experimental factors significantly influence the means of eye movement metrics, subjective ratings and run time. There was also significant influence among their interactions. A positive correlation was also found for eye movements metrics with NASA-TLX and run time.ConclusionsEye movement metrics help in understanding the mental workload of participants unobtrusively and continuously. Analysis of subjective workload measure and run time along with eye-gaze analysis provide a deeper understanding on the pattern of mental workload.     

Conversations with a virtual human: Synthetic emotions and human responses

To test whether synthetic emotions expressed by a virtual human elicit positive or negative emotions in a human conversation partner and affect satisfaction towards the conversation, an experiment was conducted where the emotions of a virtual human were manipulated during both the listening and speaking phase of the dialogue. Twenty-four participants were recruited and were asked to have a real conversation with the virtual human on six different topics. For each topic the virtual human’s emotions in the listening and speaking phase were different, including positive, neutral and negative emotions. The results support our hypotheses that (1) negative compared to positive synthetic emotions expressed by a virtual human can elicit a more negative emotional state in a human conversation partner, (2) synthetic emotions expressed in the speaking phase have more impact on a human conversation partner than emotions expressed in the listening phase, (3) humans with less speaking confidence also experience a conversation with a virtual human as less positive, and (4) random positive or negative emotions of a virtual human have a negative effect on the satisfaction with the conversation. These findings have practical implications for the treatment of social anxiety as they allow therapists to control the anxiety evoking stimuli, i.e., the expressed emotion of a virtual human in a virtual reality exposure environment of a simulated conversation. In addition, these findings may be useful to other virtual applications that include conversations with a virtual human.     

Exploring Relationships Between Eye Tracking and Traditional Usability Testing Data

This study explored the relationships between eye tracking and traditional usability testing data in the context of analyzing the usability of Algebra Nation?, an online system for learning mathematics used by hundreds of thousands of students. Thirty-five undergraduate students (20 females) completed seven usability tasks in the Algebra Nation? online learning environment. The participants were asked to log in, select an instructor for the instructional video, post a question on the collaborative wall, search for an explanation of a mathematics concept on the wall, find information relating to Karma Points (an incentive for engagement and learning), and watch two instructional videos of varied content difficulty. Participants’ eye movements (fixations and saccades) were simultaneously recorded by an eye tracker. Usability testing software was used to capture all participants’ interactions with the system, task completion time, and task difficulty ratings. Upon finishing the usability tasks, participants completed the System Usability Scale. Important relationships were identified between the eye movement metrics and traditional usability testing metrics such as task difficulty rating and completion time. Eye tracking data were investigated quantitatively using aggregated fixation maps, and qualitative examination was performed on video replay of participants’ fixation behavior. Augmenting the traditional usability testing methods, eye movement analysis provided additional insights regarding revisions to the interface elements associated with these usability tasks.     

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.     

The immersive effect of adaptive architecture

This paper explores the role of immersion in the generation of specific interactive effects, within the context of the emerging research field of Adaptive Architecture. Drawing on an existing biofeedback-driven prototype that links a person’s respiration to the form of their environment, the study presented here compared an immersive condition with a non-immersive condition to capture differences in participant experiences. The immersive condition afforded the majority of participants a relaxed, embodied experience, whereas the non-immersive condition left people unconnected. The study did not surface statistically significant differences in participants’ physiological responses between the two conditions. The study findings contribute to the understanding of our relationship with adaptive environments, underpinned by pervasive computing technologies, as they emerge in the Arts and Architecture.     

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.     

Affective, anxiety and behavioral effects of an aversive stimulation during a simulated navigation task within a virtual environment: A pilot study

This study investigated the impact of an aversive environmental stimulation on self-reported affective and anxiety states and movement behaviors during a simulated navigation task in a virtual environment (VE). In the experimental task, participants were asked to virtually navigate (within two consecutive sessions), from a starting point to a destination location, across a spatial configuration consisting in three successive corridors (A-C). In the first session, all corridors were non-aversive. In the second session, the corridor B contained an aversive stimulation (i.e., fire, smokescreen, and warning alarm). Fourteen participants were involved in the experiment. Self-reported anxiety and affective states were measured at the end of each session. However, movement indicators (i.e., execution, time, average speed, speed and trajectory variability) were recorded on-line during the experiment. Results showed a significant increased (i) level of self-reported negative affects and state-anxiety between the two sessions, and (ii) speed and trajectory variability between the two sessions, while the participants were in corridor B. In conclusion, these results support the experimental validity of virtual reality for the induction of negative affects and state-anxiety. The relationships between reported negative affects and state-anxiety and behavior are discussed.     

Relationship between eye fixation patterns and Kansei evaluation of 3D chair forms

Understanding how to induce Kansei (emotion or affect) in consumers through form is critical in product design and development. Conventional Kansei evaluations, which involve subjectively evaluating the overall form of a product, do not clarify the effects of the individual parts of a product on people’s Kansei evaluation. A microscale analysis of eye movement of people looking at product form may redeem this flaw in subjective evaluation. However, simultaneously recording eye movement when people making Kansei evaluation is challenging, previous studies have typically investigated either the relationship between form and eye movement or the relationship between form and Kansei separately. The eye movement of people while performing Kansei evaluations on product forms still has not been clarified. To address this issue, the present study used an eye tracking system to analyze the changes in the fixation points of people performing various Kansei evaluations. Twenty participants were recruited for 8 Kansei evaluations on the form of 16 chairs by using the semantic differential (SD) rating, while their eye movements on these evaluations were tracked simultaneously. Through factor analysis on the data of Kansei evaluations, two principal factors, valence (pleasure) and arousal, were extracted from the 8 Kansei scales to constitute a Kansei plane which is compatible to Russell’s circumplex model (plane) of affect By adopting the factor scores of the 16 chairs as coordinates, the 16 chairs were mapped into the Kansei plane. Further analysis on the eye fixation on the chairs located in this plane concluded the following results: (a) Pleasure had a more significant effect on the participants’ visual attention compared to arousal; the participants required more fixation points when evaluating the chair form that induced displeasure. (b) The participants typically fixated on two parts of the chairs during their Kansei evaluations, namely the seat and the backrest, indicating that seats and backrests are the two primary features people consider when evaluating chairs. The results clarify the effect of various Kansei on eye movements; thereby enable predicting people’s Kansei evaluations of product forms through analyzing their eye movement.     

Visual Comparison of Eye Movement Patterns

In eye tracking research, finding eye movement patterns and similar strategies between participants’ eye movements is important to understand task solving strategies and obstacles. In this application paper, we present a graph comparison method using radial graphs that show Areas of Interest (AOIs) and their transitions. An analyst investigates a single graph based on dwell times, directed transitions, and temporal AOI sequences. Two graphs can be compared directly and temporal changes may be analyzed. A list and matrix approach facilitate the analyst to contrast more than two graphs guided by visually encoded graph similarities. We evaluated our approach in case studies with three eye tracking and visualization experts. They identified temporal transition patterns of eye movements across participants, groups of participants, and outliers.     

Driver glance behaviors and scanning patterns: Applying static and dynamic glance measures to the analysis of curve driving with secondary tasks

Performing secondary tasks (or non‐driving‐related tasks) while driving on curved roads may be risky and unsafe. The purpose of this study was to explore whether driving safety in situations involving curved roads and secondary tasks can be evaluated using multiple measures of eye movement. We adopted Markov‐based transition algorithms (i.e., transition/stationary probabilities, entropy) to quantify drivers’ dynamic eye movement patterns, in addition to typical static visual measures, such as frequency and duration of glances. The algorithms were evaluated with data from an experiment (Jeong & Liu, 2019) involving multiple road curvatures and stimulus‐response secondary task types. Drivers were more likely to scan only a few areas of interest with a long duration in sharper curves. Total head‐down glance time was longer in less sharp curves in the experiment, but the probability of head‐down glances was higher in sharper curves over the long run. The number of reliable transitions between areas of interest varied with the secondary task type. The visual scanning patterns for visually undemanding tasks were as random as those for visually demanding tasks. Markov‐based measures of dynamic eye movements provided insights to better understand drivers’ underlying mental processes and scanning strategies, compared with typical static measures. The presented methods and results can be useful for in‐vehicle systems design and for further analysis of visual scanning patterns in the transportation domain.     

支持力反馈的沉浸式物理学习环境的构建

随着虚拟现实(VR)技术的发展,沉浸式学习环境在教育教学领域应用前景日趋广阔,如物理实验仿真教学.然而,现有虚拟学习环境大多只能提供视觉与听觉的交互,不支持力触觉交互,存在弊端.项目组将力反馈技术应用于虚拟学习环境,描述一个支持力反馈的沉浸式物理学习环境的总体框架和开发流程.使用Touch力反馈设备,借助Unity3D...     

Relationships among display features, eye movement characteristics, and reaction time in visual search

The relative contribution of number of fixations and fixation duration to reaction time in visual search was investigated. Ten participants (age 20-24 years) took part in each of two experiments. In Experiment 1, the experimental factors were display type (icon and file name), organization (arrangements with and without grouping), and number of stimuli presented (4, 8, and 16). In Experiment 2, a search task for a target stimulus (three prespecified random letters) was conducted, and the experimental factor was the display's layout complexity. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine whether reaction time was explained by a mediational model in which reaction time is mediated by eye movements and display features are not directly related to reaction time. The mediational model was not supported, and the effects of display features on reaction time were not attributable solely to eye movements. The interaction between number of fixations and fixation duration was also explored as a function of display features. As the display feature changed and the task became more difficult, the contribution of the number of fixations to explain the variation in reaction time became dominant for both experiments. Potential applications include measurements of cognitive ability, eye muscle balance disorders, and binocular fusion ability.     

Eye movements of younger and older drivers.

This 2-part study focuses on eye movements to explain driving-related visual performance in younger and older persons. In the first task, participants' eye movements were monitored as they viewed a traffic scene image with a numeric overlay and visually located the numbers in their sequential order. The results showed that older participants had significantly longer search episodes than younger participants, and that the visual search of older adults was characterized by more fixations and shorter saccades, although the average fixation durations remained the same. In the second task, participants viewed pictures of traffic scenes photographed from the driver's perspective. Their task was to assume the role of the driver and regard the image accordingly. Results in the second task showed that older participants allocated a larger percentage of their visual scan time to a small subset of areas in the image, whereas younger participants scanned the images more evenly. Also, older participants revisited the same areas and younger participants did not. The results suggest how aging might affect the efficacy of visual information processing. Potential applications of this research include training older drivers for a more effective visual search, and providing older drivers with redundant information in case some information is missed.     

How level of realism influences anxiety in virtual reality environments for a job interview

This study describes how the level of graphical realism required in a virtual social simulation setting can be therapeutically useful in reducing job interview anxiety through exposure. We developed a virtual job interview simulation at a university career service to help student populations faced with the prospect of their first job interview. The virtual job interview simulation can deliver a realistic mock job interview within a high-quality immersive system that is similar to professional virtual reality (VR) systems. We conducted two experimental studies with a common theme: the role of graphical reality of the virtual interviewer and the immersive visual display in the virtual job interview simulation. The results are presented in this study based on a psycho-physiological approach, revealing variation in the distribution of participants′ anxiety state across various VR conditions. The overall conclusion of this study is that the sense of anxiety is less correlated to the graphical realism in VR environment even though the more graphically detailed the virtual human was, the more it provoked a sense of presence. In addition, at least some degree of physical immersion is needed to maintain anxiety levels over the course of VR exposure.     

Eye movement as a mediator of the relationships among time pressure,feedback, and learning performance

The goal of this study is to examine the effects of time pressure and feedback on learning performance, as mediated by eye movement. Time pressure is one of main causes of human error in the workplace. Providing participants with feedback about their performance before task completion has been shown to reduce human error in diverse domains. Since both time pressure and feedback induce motivation, which is closely related to attention, we measured participants' eye movements to trace their attention and information acquisition coupled with a visual display. Time-to-deadline (long and short) and the presence of feedback were the independent factors used while measuring participants’ performance and eye movements as they learned new information about the subject of project management and answered multiple-choice questions via self-paced online learning systems. Using structural equation modeling, we found a mediating effect of eye movement on the relationships among time-to-deadline, feedback, and learning performance. Insufficient time-to-deadline accelerated the number of fixations on the screen, which resulted in longer task completion times and increased correct rates for participants learning about project management. The models in this study suggest the possibility of predicting performance from eye movement under time-to-deadline and feedback conditions. The structural equation model in the study can be applied to online and remote learning systems, in which time management is one of the main challenges for individual learners.     

Effects of task experience and layout on learning from text and pictures with or without unnecessary picture descriptions

The presentation of extraneous (i.e., irrelevant or unnecessary) information may hamper learning with multimedia. The present study examined whether people can learn to ignore unnecessary information with increasing experience with the task and whether this depends on the layout of that information. In two experiments, participants learned about the process of mitosis from a multimedia slideshow, with each slide presenting a combination of expository text and a picture on one of the stages in the process. Slides either contained no unnecessary text (control condition) or unnecessary text (i.e., merely describing the picture) either integrated in the picture (integrated condition) or presented underneath the picture (separated condition). Knowledge about the studied mitosis phase was tested immediately after each slide using a cloze test. Across Experiments 1 and 2, we did not find a reliable negative effect of the unnecessary text on cloze test performance. As a result, the question of whether task experience would reduce or eliminate that negative effect could not be answered. The eye movement data did confirm, however, that participants attended less to the unnecessary information with increasing task experience, suggesting that students can adapt their study strategy and learn to ignore unnecessary information.     

Distraction as a measure of presence: using visual and tactile adjustable distraction as a measure to determine immersive presence of content in mediated environments

To assess and improve the user experience in entertainment products, developers need results of evaluation methods, which in detail measure the relationship between the mediated content and the resulting media experience. This paper proposes a method applying adjustable distraction (AD) to determine presence as immersion (Lombard and Ditton in At the heart of it all: the concept of presence, Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media, Temple University, 1997) at selectable events (approximated real-time). Two experiments were conducted to investigate its applicability in computer games and movies with respectively visual and tactile AD. The first experiment examined whether the experienced intensity in a survival-shooter game, measured through questionnaires, was proportional to results from the AD method. The intrusiveness of the AD method was also addressed in the experiment by comparing the immersive presence ratings in a between-groups design. The second experiment investigated whether heart rate measurements, intensity ratings and the results of the AD method with vibration as the distraction signal were proportional when test participants watched a movie clip. The outcome of the first experiment indicated that no significant intrusion is caused by the method. In addition, results showed no proportionality between the AD method and intensity ratings. However, as the AD measurements were supported by flow theory, it might be that the results from the AD method using visual distraction are giving a more comprehensive indication of presence as immersion (rather than just the intensity dimension). The second experiment revealed proportionality between the intensity ratings and the heart rate measurements, while the results from the tactile AD method were not proportional. We suspect that this was caused by the great variance found across the test participants’ thresholds of perceivable vibration. Because of this, it is suggested that a thorough screening process is conducted pre-test if the AD method should apply vibration as the distracting stimulus.     

Women and computers. Effects of stereotype threat on attribution of failure

This study investigated whether stereotype threat can influence women’s attributions of failure in a computer task. Male and female college-age students (n = 86, 16–21 years old) from Germany were asked to work on a computer task and were hinted beforehand that in this task, either (a) men usually perform better than women do (negative threat condition), or (b) women usually perform better than men do (positive condition), or (c) they received no threat or gender-related information (control group). The final part of the task was prepared to provide an experience of failure: due to a faulty USB-memory stick, completion of the task was not possible. Results suggest a stereotype threat effect on women’s attribution of failure: in the negative threat condition, women attributed the failure more internally (to their own inability), and men more externally (to the faulty technical equipment). In the positive and control conditions, no significant gender differences in attribution emerged.