Interactive Virtual Reality Research Articles

Exploring the Effect of Personality Traits in VR Interaction: The Emergent Role of Perspective-Taking in Task Performance

In this work we explore the effect of personality traits on user interaction in virtual reality (VR), on the less widely studied aspect of task performance during object manipulation. We conducted an experiment measuring the performance of 39 users interacting with a virtual environment using the virtual hand metaphor to execute a simple selection and positioning task, with or without virtual obstacles. Our findings suggest concrete correlations between user personality traits and behavior data. Perspective-taking, in particular, seems to be strongly affecting task performance, highlighting the need for further research. Besides the wider implications of our results in relation to the effect of personality on how users experience VR, our main contribution lies in identifying specific traits that should be taken into account when designing experiments involving users performing such tasks. The study of these traits may also significantly advance our understanding of personality traits as part of the user model in a wider range of VR applications, including those offering personalization and recommendation functionality.

Learning with virtual reality simulations: direct versus vicarious instructional experience

ABSTRACT As virtual reality (VR) technologies have been increasingly adopted in the educational field, careful consideration and evaluation of instructional modes to support learning with VR are needed. This study focuses on evaluation of two instructional modes: direct interaction and manipulation of the VR learning environment; and the vicarious approach of observing how a novice peer and an expert learn with VR. An experimental design was utilized with two comparison conditions: direct VR interaction (n = 72) and the vicarious approach (n = 69). Participants’ knowledge and emotional engagement were evaluated via self-report questionnaires. Results showed that though learning with the direct VR condition was associated with more intense emotional engagement, there was no significant difference in knowledge gains between the two study conditions. The findings suggest that each of the two instructional modes has specific instructional affordances and that the cognitive and emotional components of learning via VR should be further explored. Since learning vicariously through observing the dialogue between an expert and a peer can have immediate knowledge gains comparable to the direct VR interaction, there is an effective and more accessible opportunity for VR-based learning. Future research should evaluate this instructional effect on knowledge retention.

“Passive or interactive virtual reality? The effectiveness for pain and anxiety reduction in pediatric patients”

Invasive techniques such as venipuncture are painful procedures causing stress and anxiety, both in pediatric patients and in their carers. For this reason, efforts are being made to develop mitigating strategies for the patient’s pain and anxiety during the performance. To analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the use of Virtual Reality distraction techniques as a measure of pain and anxiety reduction in pediatric patients and their parents. In addition, the effects of two modes of Virtual Reality (passive vs. interactive) were compared. A quasi-experimental study was carried out in the pediatric emergency department of a tertiary referral hospital in north Spain. The participants were children who underwent venipuncture for blood extraction and vascular cannulation. From the 124 patients, 51.6% (n = 64) were girls and 48.4% (n = 60) were boys (p = 0.574). The mean age was 8.4 years (SD: 4.1). The mean level of pain experienced was 2.33 (SD: 0.76) in the interactive VR group (n = 88) versus 2.67 (SD: 1.35) in patients with passive VR (n = 36) (p = 0.008); being the presence of anxiety in 27.3% (n = 24) of the cases treated with interactive Virtual Reality and in 88.9% (n = 32) of the patients with passive Virtual Reality (p = 0.000). The virtual reality is an effective method to reduce pain and anxiety levels in pediatric patients, with the effectiveness of interactive virtual reality and its use in the population aged 7–15 years being greater.

A comparison of interactive immersive virtual reality and still nature pictures as distraction-based analgesia in burn wound care

PurposeNon-pharmacologic adjuncts to opioid analgesics for burn wound debridement enhance safety and cost effectiveness in care. The current study explored the feasibility of using a custom portable water-friendly immersive VR hardware during burn debridement in adults, and tested whether interactive VR would reduce pain more effectively than nature stimuli viewed in the same VR goggles. MethodsForty-eight patients with severe burn injuries (44 adults and 4 children) had their burn injuries debrided and dressed in a wet wound care environment on Study Day 1, and 13 also participated in Study Day 2. InterventionThe study used a within-subject design to test two hypotheses (one hypothesis per study day) with the condition order randomized. On Study Day 1, each individual (n = 44 participants) spent 5 min of wound care in an interactive immersive VR environment designed for burn care, and 5 min looking at still nature photos and sounds of nature in the same VR goggles. On Study Day 2 (n = 12 adult participants and one adolescent from Day 1), each participant spent 5 min of burn wound care with no distraction and 5 min of wound care in VR, using a new water-friendly VR system. On both days, during a post-wound care assessment, participants rated and compared the pain they had experienced in each condition. Outcome measures on Study Days 1 and 2Worst pain during burn wound care was the primary dependent variable. Secondary measures were ratings of time spent thinking about pain during wound care, pain unpleasantness, and positive affect during wound care. ResultsOn Study Day 1, no significant differences in worst pain ratings during wound care were found between the computer-generated world (Mean = 71.06, SD = 26.86) vs. Nature pictures conditions (Mean = 68.19, SD = 29.26; t < 1, NS). On secondary measures, positive affect (fun) was higher, and realism was lower during computer-generated VR. No significant differences in pain unpleasantness or “presence in VR” between the two conditions were found, however. VR vs. No VR. (Study Day 2)Participants reported significantly less worst pain when distracted with adjunctive computer generated VR than during standard wound care without distraction (Mean = 54.23, SD = 26.13 vs 63.85, SD = 31.50, t(11) = 1.91, p < .05, SD = 17.38). In addition, on Study Day 2, “time spent thinking about pain during wound care” was significantly less during the VR condition, and positive affect was significantly greater during VR, compared to the No VR condition. ConclusionThe current study is innovative in that it is the first to show the feasibility of using a custom portable water-friendly immersive VR hardware during burn debridement in adults. However, contrary to predictions, interactive VR did not reduce pain more effectively than nature stimuli viewed in the same VR goggles.

The role of virtual reality interactivity in building tourists’ memorable experiences and post-adoption intentions in the COVID-19 era

虚拟现实交互在COVID-19时代中构建难忘的游客体验和采纳意向的作用研究目的本研究旨在检验虚拟现实 (VR) 交互元素的影响, 包括同步性、双向通信和主动控制, 对游客的VR 难忘的经历, 以及对游客口碑 (WOM) 和 VR 的持续意向。研究设计/方法/途径该研究模型采用来自285名体验过旅行和VR旅游活动的中国游客的调查数据进行了测试。偏最小二乘 - 结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）用来执行潜在的变量分析。研究发现VR交互元素, 包括同步性、双向通信和主动控制, 在推动游客 VR 难忘体验方面发挥了相当大的作用, 进而推动游客的口碑和VR持续意向研究限制/价值使用了横断面的单一国家数据, 因此调查结果的普遍性可能有限。建议未来的研究采用纵向比较方法来比较具有多元文化不同国家为背景的构象之间关系。实践价值研究结果为旅游营销人员利用VR的交互特性, 包括同步性、双向交流、主动性控制, 来驱动游客难忘的体验, 从而加强游客的推荐和继续意向研究原创性/价值学术界对 VR 交互性在构建游客的难忘经历和行为意图的重要作用的研究仍然有限。本研究有助于旅游营销文献通过实证检验研究模型揭示VR交互元素的重要性, 包括同步性、双向通信、和主动控制, 构建游客的 VR 难忘体验和行为意图。

First Assessment Results of Surveying Engineering Labs in Immersive and Interactive Virtual Reality

AbstractTechnological advancements in virtual reality have opened the door for widespread dissemination and application in engineering education. In surveying engineering, outdoor labs are essentia...

Older Adults’ Concurrent and Retrospective Think-Aloud Verbalizations for Identifying User Experience Problems of VR Games

AbstractWhile virtual reality (VR) games are beneficial for older adults to improve their physical functions and cognitive abilities, VR research often does not include older adults. Our review of the proceedings of major HCI conferences (i.e. ASSETS, CHI, CHI PLAY, CSCW and DIS) between 2016 and 2020 shows that only three out of 352 VR-related papers involved older adults. Consequently, older adults tend to encounter user experience (UX) problems with VR. One common way to identify UX problems is to conduct usability testing with think-aloud (TA) protocols. As VR games tend to be perceptually and physically demanding, older adults might need to allocate more resources to VR content and interaction and thus have fewer resources for thinking aloud. This raises the question of whether TA protocols are still a viable approach to detecting UX problems of VR games for older adult participants. To answer this question, we conducted usability testing with older adults who played two common types of VR games (i.e. the exergame and experience game) using concurrent and retrospective TA protocols (i.e. CTA and RTA), which are widely used in the industry. We analyzed participants’ TA verbalizations and uncovered how different categories of verbalizations indicate UX problems. We further show how older adults perceived the effects of thinking aloud on their game experiences in two TA protocols and offer design implications.

Learning-Based Prediction, Rendering and Transmission for Interactive Virtual Reality in RIS-Assisted Terahertz Networks

The quality of experience (QoE) requirements of wireless virtual reality (VR) can only be satisfied with high data rate, high reliability, and low VR interaction latency. This high data rate over short transmission distances may be achieved via the abundant bandwidth in the terahertz (THz) band. However, THz waves experience severe signal attenuation, which may be compensated by the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology with programmable reflecting elements. Meanwhile, the low VR interaction latency can be achieved with the mobile edge computing (MEC) network architecture due to its computation capabilities. Motivated by these considerations, in this paper, we propose an MEC-enabled and RIS-assisted THz VR network in an indoor scenario, by taking into account the uplink viewpoint prediction and position transmission, the MEC rendering, and the downlink transmission. We propose two methods, which are referred to as centralized online gated recurrent unit (GRU) and distributed federated averaging (FedAvg), to predict the viewpoints of the VR users. In the uplink, an algorithm that integrates online long-short term memory (LSTM) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) is deployed to predict the locations and the line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight statuses of the VR users over time. In the downlink, we develop a constrained deep reinforcement learning algorithm to select the optimal phase shifts of the RIS under latency constraints. Simulation results show that our proposed learning architecture achieves near-optimal QoE as that of the genie-aided benchmark algorithm, and about two times improvement in QoE compared to the random phase shift selection scheme.

Historical interactive virtual reality learning in college

Virtual Reality provides many benefits in learning because it can create a variety of simulation situations that can not be done due to obstruction of danger or high costs. This research aims to research and develop learning media in history using virtual reality technology. This research and development use ADDIE's research steps method (analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate). The Delphi method carried out product validation using four media experts and four historians. The product trial phase uses 400 students in two study programs to see the effectiveness of the products developed. Research development have produced a prototype product website platform with expert feasibility assessment (product validation) results. The results of the media expert assessment are 3.88 (feasible), and the expert assessment material of 4.09 (possible). The media tested on 400 students obtained satisfactory results, with the average overall score reaching 4.23 or in the category of "Very Worthy."

Data visualization of crime data using immersive virtual reality

Visualization explores quantitative content of data with human intuition and plays an integral part in the data mining process. When the data is big there are different analysis methods and approaches used to find inherent patterns and relationships. However, sometimes a human in loop intervention is needed to find new connections and relationships that the existing algorithms cannot provide. Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) provides the &#x201C;sense of presence&#x201D; and gives the ability to discover new connections and relationships by visual inspection. The goal of this work is to investigate the merging of immersive VR and data science for advanced visualization. VR and immersive visualization involve interplay between novel technology and human perception to generate insight into both. We propose to use immersive VR for exploring the higher dimensionality and abstraction that are associated with big data. VR can use an abstract representation of high-dimensional data in support of advanced scientific visualization. This paper demonstrates the data visualization tool with real-time feed of Baltimore crime data in immersive environment, non-immersive environment, and mobile environment. We have combined virtual reality interaction techniques and 3D geographical information representation to enhance the visualization of situational impacts as shown in Figure 1. The data visualization tool is developed using the Unity gaming engine. We have presented bar graphs with oculus controller to combine the bar chart visualization with a zooming feature that allows users to view the details more effectively. The Oculus Touch headset allows the users to navigate and experience the environment with full immersion. Oculus Touch controllers also give haptic feedback to the user when using objects such as laser pointer. We are interested in extending our VR data visualization tools to enable collaborative, multi-user data exploration and to explore the impact of VR on collaborative analytics tasks, in comparison with traditional 2D visualizations. The benefits of our proposed work include providing a data visualization tool for immersive visualization and visual analysis. We also suggest key features that immersive analytics can provide with situational awareness and in loop human intervention for decision making.

The utility of 3D, haptic‐enabled, virtual reality technologies for student knowledge gains in the complex biological system of the human heart

AbstractBackgroundKnowledge of the structure and function of the human heart is fundamental to accurately understanding human physiology. As a complex biological system, naïve conceptions abound regarding cardiac anatomy and physiology for K‐12 learners and medical students alike.ObjectiveTextbooks and lectures, as well models and simulations, have had limited success in aiding learners in constructing accurate and cohesive knowledge of the human heart. Three dimensional (3D) modelling, haptic‐enabled (HE) feedback, and interactive virtual reality (VR) experiences aid tertiary learners, yet it is unknown if secondary learners benefit from learning with these technologies.MethodsAn exploratory study examined secondary student knowledge of cardiac anatomy and physiology after participation in an interactive lesson on cardiac structure and function using a 3D, HE, VR technology system. Students from sixth grade (11–12 years old; n = 75) and ninth grade (14–15 years old; n = 76) completed a pre‐ and post‐assessment on cardiac knowledge, anatomy, and physiology punctuated by technology‐delivered instruction on the human heart.Results and ConclusionsSignificant gains were found in knowledge from both groups in cardiac anatomy and blood circulation within the chambers of the heart; however, only ninth grade students demonstrated significant knowledge gains in pulmonary circulation.TakeawaysResults suggest that 3D HE VR technologies provide learners robust representations of and student‐driven interactions with complex biological systems that are innovative instructionally for strong conceptual and systematic learning. This study offers insight on technology‐assisted science visualizations for the promotion of knowledge acquisition and systems thinking of the human heart among secondary science students.

Virtual Reality Reduces Pediatric Anxiety During Food Allergy Clinical Trials: A Pilot Randomized, Pragmatic Study.

Phlebotomy procedures required in food allergy (FA) diagnosis and clinical trials often induce fear and anxiety for pediatric patients. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether virtual reality (VR) applications were effective in reducing anxiety for pediatric FA patients undergoing phlebotomy during FA clinical trials. Secondary aims assessed fear, pain, procedural compliance, and adverse events. Participants undergoing phlebotomy were enrolled and randomized to a VR group or standard of care (SOC) group for this prospective pilot randomized, pragmatic study. Participants in the VR group played interactive applications on a customized Samsung Gear VR headset and those in the SOC group received the standard of care. Participants' anxiety, fear, and pain were assessed with the Children's Anxiety Meter, Children's Fear Scale, and FACES pain scale pre, during, and post phlebotomy procedure. Compliance was assessed using the modified Induction Compliance Checklist during the procedure and compared between two groups. Forty-nine participants were randomized to VR (n = 26) and SOC (n = 23) groups. Although both the VR and SOC groups experienced a decrease in anxiety and fear from pre- to post-procedure, those in the VR group experienced less anxiety and fear during the procedure than SOC participants. Similarly, both groups experienced an increase in pain from pre- to post-procedure; however, the VR group reported less pain during the procedure than SOC. Fewer symptoms of procedural non-compliance were reported in the VR group. Interactive VR applications may be an effective tool for reducing fear, anxiety, and pain during phlebotomy for FA clinical trials.

Realistic Motion Avatars are the Future for Social Interaction in Virtual Reality

This study evaluated participant self-reported appraisal of social interactions with another person in virtual reality (VR) where their conversational partner was represented by a realistic motion avatar. We use the term realistic motion avatar because: 1. The avatar was modelled to look like the conversational partner it represented, and 2. Full face and body motion capture was utilised so that the avatar mimicked the facial and body language of the conversational partner in real-time. We compared social interaction in VR with face-to-face interaction across two communicative contexts: 1. Getting acquainted conversation, and 2. A structured interview where the participant engaged in self-disclosure about positive and negative experiences. Overall, participants largely indicated they preferred face-to-face over VR communication. However, some participants did indicate a preference for VR communication. Additionally, an analysis of post-conversation ratings indicated no significant difference for rated enjoyment, understanding, self-disclosure, comfort, and awkwardness between communication modes. The only ratings where face-to-face was found to be superior was for perceived closeness across both types of communication, and for feeling understood specifically when disclosing negative experiences. Most participants perceived frequent eye contact in both face-to-face and VR interaction, but typically more eye contact when face-to-face. Eye contact was positively associated with rated enjoyment, closeness, and comfort. Overall, our findings suggest that harnessing full face and body motion capture can make social interaction in VR very similar to face-to-face interaction. We anticipate that VR social interaction is poised to become the next major technological evolution for human computer mediated communication and suggest avenues for further research.

The influence of body expression, group affiliation and threat proximity on interactions in virtual reality

• Immersive virtual reality was used to create ecologically valid threat scenarios. • Participants embodied either a white-skinned or a black-skinned virtual body (VB). • Heart rate and body sway reduction were taken as indexes of freezing reactivity. • Freezing was observed when participants faced aggressive-looking and proximal avatars. • Freezing was observed for ingroup aggression when embodying a black-skinned VB. Social threat requires fast adaptive reactions. One prominent threat-coping behavior present in both humans and other species is freezing, of which heart rate deceleration and reduced postural mobility are two key components. Previous studies mostly focused on freezing reactions in rodents, but now virtual reality offers unique possibilities for controlled and ecologically valid lab-based experiments in humans. This immersive virtual reality study examined how several understudied aspects of social threat, i.e., emotional body expressions, group affiliation, and physical distance from the potential threat, affect freezing behavior in humans. We hypothesized that freezing would be observed for approaching aggressive-looking virtual characters and for virtual characters situated in close proximity. Furthermore, we predicted an enhanced freezing response for approaching, aggressive outgroup members. As expected, reduced heart rate and postural mobility were observed in participants when they faced aggressive-looking and proximal virtual characters. Freezing was also observed for ingroup aggression, specifically when participants were embodied in a black-skinned virtual body and faced black-skinned aggressive and proximal virtual characters. Our results provide novel evidence on the social factors that elicit freezing behavior in humans. Importantly, this evidence is based on a highly ecological virtual reality paradigm that enables people to experience a threatening scenario “as if” it was actually happening to them.

Enabling Human-Robot Partnerships in Digitally-Driven Construction Work through Integration of Building Information Models, Interactive Virtual Reality, and Process-Level Digital Twins

Enabling Human-Robot Partnerships in Digitally-Driven Construction Work through Integration of Building Information Models, Interactive Virtual Reality, and Process-Level Digital Twins

Automated Stress Recognition Using Supervised Learning Classifiers by Interactive Virtual Reality Scenes.

Virtual reality (VR) technology offers a great opportunity to explore stress disorder therapies. We created a VR stress training system, which incorporates three highly interactive stressful scenes to elicit stress, and demonstrate the concurrent variations between physiological data (heart rate, electrodermal activity and eye-blink rate) and self-reported stress ratings through a self-designed customized perceived stress questionnaire (SSAI) and wearable devices. Several supervised learning models were rigorously applied to automate stress recognition. Our findings include the evaluations of the VR system by computing Cronbach's alpha ( α = 0.72 ) and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) coefficient ( η = 0.78 ) through a retrospective survey, which were subsequently confirmed as reliable on four aspects (sense of presence, sense of space, sense of immersion and sense of reality) via factor analysis. Additionally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of physiology-based stress level classification (no stress, low stress and high stress) and continuous SSAI score prediction, with accuracy reaching 0.742 by bagging ensemble learning model and goodness-of-fit reaching 0.44 via multivariate stepwise regression. This study provides detailed insight regarding the effect of objective physiological measures on the validation of subjective self-ratings under a novel complex VR stress training system, which stimulates the further investigations of stress disorder recognition and treatment.

From Screenwriting to Space-Writing

In the past ten years, audiovisual creators have been working on the development of narrative experiences for extended reality (XR) technologies, especially virtual reality (VR). The evolution of this practice has led to the creation of a technical language and processes. The transfer of knowledge from cinematography and videography has been the basis for the creative practice of “immersive narratives,” very often carrying with it jargon and practices that do not fit entirely with XR’s spatial nature. In this essay, I ref lect on whether we are still writing for a screen or writing for space from a practitioner’s perspective. Such a change of perspective starts with the recognition of the perceptual sphere and how to compose scenes in it. In this regard, a review of storyboarding for VR, followed by my own experience in creating an interactive VR movie, allowed me to ref lect on the concept of framing, camera positions, and authorial intentions. Finally, I argue that we can move from screenwriting to space-writing in relation to the technologies and immersive power of XR.

Edge-Computing-Assisted Virtual Reality Computation Offloading: An Empirical Study

Offloading heavy virtual reality (VR) computational operations to a network edge computation entity is receiving increasing attention as a tool to wirelessly and energy efficiently provide low-end client devices with high-quality and immersive interactive VR services anytime and anywhere across the globe. In this work, we aim to provide an understanding of various characteristics of VR computation offloading through comprehensive experiments conducted using a prototype testbed for edge-assisted VR processing and streaming. First, we investigate the benefits of VR offloading in terms of computational load and power consumption reduction for a client device compared to standalone operation. Next, we measure VR traffic patterns, including frame size and data and packet rates with various settings, such as different resolution and encoding options. We also measure several performance metrics associated with the quality of experience, namely, frame rate, packet loss rate, and image quality, with various configuration settings. Then, we present latency measurement studies and investigate per-component latency with various settings. Furthermore, we report the rigorous experiments performed to study the impacts of latency and motion patterns on the black borders formed due to image reprojection and the overfilling technique used to eliminate these black borders.

Effects of electrical brain stimulation on brain indices and presence experience in immersive, interactive virtual reality

The subjective presence experience in virtual reality (VR) is associated with distinct brain activation patterns. Particularly, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) seems to play a central role. We investigated the effects of electric brain stimulation (transcranial direct current, tDCS) on the presence experience as well as on brain activity and connectivity. Thirty-eight participants received either anodal (N = 18) or cathodal (N = 20) stimulation of the DLPFC before interacting in an immersive VR as well as sham stimulation. During VR interaction, EEG and heart rate were recorded. After VR interaction, participants rated their subjective presence experience using standardized questionnaires. Cathodal stimulation led to stronger brain connectivity than sham stimulation. Increased brain connectivity was associated with numerically lower levels of subjective presence. Anodal stimulation did not lead to changes in brain connectivity, and no differences in subjective presence ratings were found between the anodal and sham stimulation. These results indicate that cathodal tDCS over the DLPFC leads to a more synchronized brain state, which might hamper the activity in networks, which are generally associated with the evolvement of the subjective presence experience. Our results underline the importance of the DLPFC for the presence experience in VR.

Digital-twin driven energy-efficient multi-crane scheduling and crane number selection in workshops

In multi-crane systems, interference between cranes frequently occurs, and a significant amount of energy is wasted to avoid these interferences. Energy-efficient multi-crane scheduling and employing the required number of cranes are critical for saving energy. The energy consumption of a crane varies during operation; thus, it is important to accurately and effectively evaluate the operational energy consumption of a crane for different working phases. Digital twins (DTs) have various advantages such as virtual reality interaction, real-time mapping, and dynamic performance evaluation. Therefore, a DT-driven energy-efficient multi-crane scheduling and crane number selection approach is proposed in this study. The crane scheduling problem was described and modeled by considering energy consumption. Subsequently, a DT framework was established. Under this framework, a multi-crane system based on simulation was built in a virtual space. After inputting tasks into the virtual multi-crane system, a solution was generated based on the crane scheduling rules, interference detection, and avoidance methods. Then, the energy consumption of the program was evaluated. Finally, a case study was considered to illustrate the advantages of the proposed method.