IVR Technology Research Articles

Gamified immersive safety training in virtual reality: a mixed methods approach

PurposeThe reemergence of immersive virtual technology (IVR) provides both opportunities and challenges for workplace learning (WPL). The purpose of this study is to explore and develop knowledge about how gamification influences the WPL experience by addressing two research questions: RQ1. What characterizes a gamified immersive safety training experience with IVR technology? and RQ2. How does gamified immersive safety training with IVR technology impact the WPL experience?Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a mixed methods approach by combining a systematic literature review with a case study on an empirical project about immersive fire safety training for train operators that are used at the Swedish train operating company SJ. The case study included data from semistructured interviews, Web survey and observation studies. The data was analyzed in two stages combining inductive and deductive data analysis for identifying themes and categories.FindingsThe findings of the study are twofold: (1) themes that conceptualize the gamified immersive safety training experience based on outputs from both the literature review and the first round of data analysis; and (2) a framework with three overarching categories that are mapped with the identified themes, and which were deduced throughout the second round of data analysis.Originality/valueThe originality of the findings stresses the implications of how a body of knowledge that synthesizes gamification concepts with immersive safety training, can inform the design of WPL experiences that are facilitated with IVR technology. As such, the implications of the findings are targeted toward both the advancement of the IVR discourse in the WPL field, but also toward practical considerations for design of immersive learning experiences that enrich WPL practices and culture.

"Effect of Immersive Virtual Reality in Adjunct to Conventional Physiotherapy on Static Balance, Dynamic Balance and Vertical Jump in Futsal Players with Lateral Ankle Sprain: A Protocol for Randomized Control Trial"

Background As there is high expense of treatment and potential long-term consequences including chronic ankle instability (CAI), lateral ankle sprains (LAS) are common among athletes and represent a substantial healthcare burden. In terms of preventing more injuries and encouraging a full recovery, traditional treatments frequently fall short. Methods At the Department of Sports Physiotherapy, futsal athletes with grade I and grade II lateral ankle sprains will participate in a parallel-group, 1:1 allocation ratio trial. Individuals who fulfil the eligibility requirements will be randomized at random to either the experimental or control group. Conventional physiotherapy treatments will be administered to the control group, and IVR sessions utilizing certain games will be administered to the experimental group in addition to the same therapies. The Y Balance Tool is used to measure dynamic balance, the X Sens MVN system is used to measure vertical jump, and the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) is used to assess static balance. Result This study aims to offer a new way to improving results for futsal players recovering from lateral ankle sprains by utilizing IVR technology in conjunction with traditional physiotherapy. The results could lead to the creation of more efficient sports-related injury rehabilitation programs, which would improve athlete performance and lessen the incidence of ankle sprains in athletic populations. CTRI Registration Number: CTRI/2024/04/065627 Name of registry: CTRI (Clinical Trials Registry) No. CTRI/2024/04/065627 Date: 12/04/2024 URL: https://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/rmaindet.php?trialid=102982&EncHid=78848.18761&modid=1&compid=19

Orthopaedic sport medicine surgeons and fellows value immersive virtual reality for improving surgical training, procedural planning, and distance learning

ObjectivesOverall, the potential utility of immersive virtual reality (iVR) technology in orthopaedic surgery is promising. The attitudes of medical students and surgical trainees on virtual reality simulated surgical training have been overwhelmingly positive. However, further research and understanding of the attitudes of practicing orthopaedic surgeons and fellows are needed to appreciate its benefits for clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to establish the face validity of iVR technology by assessing the attitudes of Canadian orthopaedic surgeons on the value of iVR for surgical training, clinical practice, and distance learning. MethodsForty-three orthopaedic surgeons and fellows attended an iVR demonstration at an annual orthopaedic meeting. The view and audio from the lead headset were cast to a large screen so the audience could follow the procedure in real time. Immediately after the presentation, the audience members were asked to complete a paper questionnaire assessing their perceptions and attitudes toward iVR for use in orthopaedic learning, clinical practice and distance education and mentoring. ResultsiVR was perceived to be valuable for the field of orthopaedic surgery providing face validity for the technology. All 13 questions were rated with mean Likert scores of five or greater, indicating a positive observed value for all 13 questions. The respondents indicated that iVR had value (score of 5 or greater) in each questionnaire domain, with agreement ranging from 78 to 98% for teaching and learning, 66–97% for clinical practice, and 88–100% for distance education and mentoring questions. ConclusionThis study has demonstrated that a group of Canadian sport medicine orthopaedic surgeons and fellows had favourable attitudes toward, and perceived that iVR has value in, orthopaedic surgical training, clinical practice, and distance learning and mentorship. The potential for utilizing iVR technology for distance learning, mentorship and global education appears promising. Level of evidenceII.

Tracking the New Trends in Immersive Virtual Reality-Assisted Foreign Language Education: A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies

This article follows up on a previous review of 30 empirical studies that examined the use of immersive virtual reality (iVR) for teaching foreign language (FL) published before 2021. That review concluded that iVR was an emerging technology in FL education. However, since then, iVR technology has rapidly developed and garnered more attention in FL education. To track the new trends in iVR-assisted FL education, we conducted a follow-up systematic review using the PRISMA method. We found 38 empirical studies published between January 2021 and March 2023, which is more than those previously found. Our findings revealed new trends and more benefits, yet more challenges compared to the previous review. The new trends discovered include an increase in both the quantity and quality of publications, research expanding from adults to younger learners, and a variety of language skills investigated. Moreover, the research focus has broadened from the iVR technology per se to its influence on different learners (e.g., gender and FL level) and the combination with other technologies or instructional strategies, such as High-iVR (i.e., users can interact with the virtual environment naturally with a sense of physical presence and full-body movement) and learner-created VR environments. The reported benefits of iVR-assisted FL education include enhancing learners’ engagement and FL skills, while the challenges include handling operational issues and unstable internet connection. Drawing from the insights gathered through this review, we derive educational, technological, and research implications that contribute to the field of iVR-assisted FL education.

DEVELOPMENT OF AN IVR PAYMENT SYSTEM

The payment system in Nigeria has experienced a major shift in recent years from the traditional mode of payment, resulting in a cashless society through mobile banking. This is a welcome development as the traditional system has a lot of drawbacks like spending hours on a queue just to make a transaction. Also, the advent of debit cards poses a challenge of inability to make payments if the card is not readily available, coupled with outrageous service charges from POS operators. Even in mobile banking, some challenges still abound such as network failure and session timeout which can be experienced while using USSD or Mobile banking applications. We are proposing an IVR payment system for customers to make payments to merchants for their goods and services. This system is very unique as it is yet to be explored in this part of the world. Imagine being able to make payments through a phone call. The need for better payment alternatives which hinges on convenience, affordability, accessibility and speed cannot be overemphasized. Our system does not require mobile data to be able to make payment transactions after purchase. Interestingly, it does not necessarily require a smartphone and as such has a high penetration especially in the rural areas, also providing a vocal guide to initiate payments for those who are visually impaired. We are able to achieve this by implementing the IVR technology, enabling customers and merchants to enroll on the platform and carry out payment transactions.

Exploration of Immersive Virtual Reality in Teaching Veterinary Orthopedics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed the use of novel teaching modalities to enhance the provision of remote veterinary education. In this study, we describe the use of immersive virtual reality (iVR) as a teaching aid for veterinary medicine students during their orthopedics clinical rotation. Student sentiments were assessed using voluntary electronic surveys taken by veterinary students before and after the rotation. The most noteworthy benefits students reported were improved engagement with the course content, information retention, radiographic interpretation, and clinical reasoning skills. Obstacles encountered during the initial stages of the program included financial and temporal investment in equipment and content development, technical troubleshooting, and motion sickness. Though it is unlikely that iVR will ever fully replace hands-on learning experiences, it presents an educational opportunity to supplement traditional learning methods, motivate students, and fill information gaps. As iVR technology continues to evolve and improve, potential applications in the veterinary curriculum grow, making the modality's use progressively more advantageous. Although this study describes its application in an orthopedic setting, the versatility of the iVR modality lends the potential for it to be implemented in a number of clinical and didactic settings.

Exploring the validity of using immersive virtual reality technique on perceived crowding of recreational environment

Perceived crowding is one of the important evaluative factors for environment quality. As a result, understanding the levels of perceived crowding is highly valued in recreation. According to previous studies, the earliest way to measure perceived crowding is to use the 9-point Likert scale. The smaller the figure, the less the users feel crowded on the spot. However, there are also different methods used in those studies to discuss the relationships between user's perceived crowding and other variables; including on-site survey, mail survey, picture simulation or virtual reality (VR). Among those different methods, as the new technology, VR may be considered the an appropriate research tool for the front-country crowing studies. In order to eliminating the limitations imposed by previous studies on measuring perceived crowding and understanding the potential of using IVR technology to measure perceived crowding. We used three studies to discuss the difference between photos and IVR, the difference between on-site experience and IVR, and the difference between on-site photo and VE in IVR method. This study progressively proves that: 1) IVR was more sensitive than photo evaluation method, and 2) IVR was not different from the on-site experience. 3) When IVR is used for research, there was no difference between on-site photo and VE. The results suggested that IVR might be more close to real on-site perceived crowding than traditional photo method; and it is possible to use 3D simulations in IVR.

Immersive virtual reality technology in a three-dimensional virtual simulated store: Investigating telepresence and usability

This study explores whether using immersive virtual reality technology (iVR) in a virtual simulated store (VSS) enhances perceived telepresence and usability compared to conventional desktop technology. Two experiments were carried out in a between-groups methodological design that involved a total of 111 participants who completed a simulated shopping trip. In the first experiment a conventional desktop computer setup was used to create the VSS using mouse and keyboard for navigation. The second experiment used iVR11Immersive virtual reality. technology including a head-mounted display, body-tracking sensors, and hand-held motion-tracked controllers, which enabled navigation via body movement in a walk-around iVR environment. Participants purchased grocery items within each VSS22Virtual simulated store. environment, and post-hoc measures of perceived telepresence and usability ratings were compared. Results showed that participants in the iVR group experienced stronger feelings of immersion and perceived naturalness of interactions with the store environment compared to the desktop group. Both factors potentially lead to enhanced perceived telepresence. However, the visual realism of virtual products and the grasping interface for iVR control of product inspection could be further enhanced by advances in iVR technology. This study has implications for food marketing research as the use of immersive iVR can potentially lead to more naturalistic shopping behaviour in VSSs.

Context conditioning in humans using commercially available immersive Virtual Reality

Despite a wealth of knowledge on how humans and nonhuman animals learn to associate meaningful events with cues in the environment, far less is known about how humans learn to associate these events with the environment itself. Progress on understanding spatiotemporal contextual processes in humans has been slow in large measure by the methodological constraint of generating and manipulating immersive spatial environments in well-controlled laboratory settings. Fortunately, immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) technology has improved appreciably and affords a relatively straightforward methodology to investigate the role of context on learning, memory, and emotion while maintaining experimental control. Here, we review context conditioning literature in humans and describe challenges to study contextual learning in humans. We then provide details for a novel context threat (fear) conditioning paradigm in humans using a commercially available VR headset and a cross-platform game engine. This paradigm resulted in the acquisition of subjective threat, threat-conditioned defensive responses, and explicit threat memory. We make the paradigm publicly available and describe obstacles and solutions to optimize future studies of context conditioning using iVR. As computer technology advances to replicate the sensation of realistic environments, there are increasing opportunities to bridge the translational gap between rodent and human research on how context modulates cognition, which may ultimately lead to more optimal treatment strategies for anxiety- and stress-related disorders.

The Role of Space in Remote Collaborations: An Exploration of Immersive Technology Attributes on Co-presence and Team Membership

GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings Spatially situating remote users: An examination of immer- sive technology on presence and team participation D. Oprean 1 , M. B. Simpson 2 , A. Klippel 2 Stuckeman Center for Design Computing The Pennsylvania State University Email: dxo12@psu.edu Department of Geography The Pennsylvania State University Email: {marksimpson;klippel}@psu.edu Abstract As today’s workforce becomes more distributed, technology provides a means to communicate over long distances. This technology however offers limited forms of communication which can lead remote participants to not feel fully participant in collaborative efforts. With the re- newed interest in immersive virtual reality (iVR) technology, the promise of more affordable and better capabilities is better than ever. iVR technology can allow remote collaborators to become spatially situated in the content of a collaboration. For this work-in-progress we exam- ine levels of immersion to understand the role of co-presence for a remote participant on team membership and participation. Our experimental set up and preliminary results will be dis- cussed. Introduction In today’s workforce, technology has enabled communication and work to occur at a distance. Remote parties can easily join in meetings virtually through the use of various collaborative equipment. However, traditional audio and video technologies cannot create the full experience of being co-present in a meeting space with collaborators. With the increased capabilities, affordability, and renewed interest in immersive virtual reality (iVR) technology, the potential to spatially situate remote parties into a meeting is higher than ever. iVR technology has been a communication tool for several decades, but recent break- throughs make the hardware and software to create iVR experiences easier to use than ever before. Past research using iVR systems have examined their ability of spatially situating indi- viduals into task spaces with great success. However, these studies have examined such tech- nology through the limited scope of testing a single system. This ‘black-box’ approach to VR systems research is a limiting factor in the literature. We believe that comparing multiple iVR system aspects will allow for better connections to spatial experiences that will be generalizable to a broader scope of technology. We used our work-in-progress to address the question of how spatially present a remote collaborator feels when experiencing different levels of visual immersiveness. Specifically, this study seeks to examine the relative impact of different levels of immersive technology on spa- tial co-presence in a meeting with one remote participant. To do this, our study built on the theoretical framework and methodological approach of Balakrishnan, Oprean, Martin, and Smith (2012) to identify levels of immersiveness. Our methodological approach allowed us to address our question through examining technology affordances—the attributes of technology that allow for actions or perceptions of actions by the appropriate entity (Greeno 1994). 1.1 Presence and Immersion The nature of presence, the feeling of being ‘present’ within a given medium (Steuer 1992), in and of itself is highly subjective, making it hard to distinguish from concepts like immersion,

The Construction of Colleges and Universities Library Unified Information System Based on Guangxi Regional Features

Through the integrated application of Library information system and campus culture of Guangxi colleges as well as the research of Guangxi colleges serving developments of China-ASEAN, and Guangxi Beibu Gulf economic region, this paper provides solution of integrated construction of college campus culture and library information system on informatization condition. In the system of college campus culture construction based on perspective of Gungxi colleges, college library information resource is used as medium to integrate into cultural connotation serving regional economy on the basis of knowledge architecture, with applications of Internet, computer telecom integration technology as well as IVR and TTS technology, communication tools commonly used by college students and teachers are adopted as informatization approaches, concept identification system, activity identification system, visual identification system, subject and specialty service system, environment and culture planning system and other unified information general culture systems are established, and e-mail, voice message, short message, WAP, real time communication, web, VoIP and other campus culture interactive measures are realized. The reconfigurable analysis of aggregate diagnosis flow proves the integrated construction of campus culture and library unified information is feasible.

Using IVR Technology for Improved Self-Care in Heart Failure Patients – Targeted Interventions for Maximum Benefits

Using IVR Technology for Improved Self-Care in Heart Failure Patients – Targeted Interventions for Maximum Benefits

An application of interactive voice response (ivr) technology to longitudinal studies of daily behavior

A relatively new technology-an interactive voice response (IVR) system-was used to collect selfreport data from 51 male subjects (21–56 years old) concerning daily tobacco and alcohol consumption over a 112-day period. After resolution of initial technical problems, the Touch-Tone data-entry methodology of the IVR was shown to provide notable advantages over traditional longitudinal self-report methodologies. The high compliance rate (93%) for this study was attributed to (1) implementation of important study design characteristics; (2) an innovative compensation scheme that reinforced consistent daily reporting and incorporated feedback to the subjects on a daily basis; (3) a simple, unobtrusive Touch-Tone data-entry interface with the interview and data-collection system that provided subjects with flexibility and time efficiency; and (4) direct coupling of the automated data-collection system and a relational database-management structure, providing immediate access and analysis of collected data.