VR Experience Research Articles

Standards and affordances of 21st-century digital learning: Using the Experience Application Programming Interface and the Augmented Reality Learning Experience Model to track engagement in extended reality

<p class="Abstract">The development of new extended reality (XR) technologies for learning enables the capture of a richer set of data than has previously been possible. To derive a benefit from this wealth of data requires new structures appropriate to the new learning activities these immersive learning tools afford. The Experience Application Programming Interface (xAPI) and the Augmented Reality Learning Experience Model (ARLEM) standards have been developed in response, and their adoption will help ensure interoperability as XR learning is more widely deployed. This paper briefly describes what is different about XR for learning and provides an account of xAPI and its structures as well as design principles for its use. The relationship between environmental context and ARLEM is explained, and a case study of a VR experience using xAPI is examined. The paper ends with an account of some of the promises for collecting data from early childhood learning experiences and an unsuccessful attempt at a study using Augmented Reality with young children.</p>

P39 Virtual reality headset as an alternative to Entonox for intraarticular corticosteroid injection

P39 Virtual reality headset as an alternative to Entonox for intraarticular corticosteroid injection

In Memorial and Serenity

Macao inhabit a population of 683,100. The birth rate has been dropping while the death rate has risen compared to two years ago. Cemeteries are becoming crowded, and burial spots are demanding. In this case, video calls and social media can be the solution. How about our beloved ancestors? Can we video call them on their memorial days? This paper presents a VR experience of immersing oneself in the 3D VR of the Chapel of St. Michael of Macao to create a peaceful atmosphere for grave mourning. The chapel is also a personal space where we can be truly isolated in serenity. It is a retreat to pray, disconnect, and reconnect to the beloved deaths that may not be buried in an easily accessible location. The authors propose a possible future of mourning our loved ones through virtual reality and telepresence: an immersive experience connected with Macao's extraordinary and cultural unicity.

A Tale of Two Productions

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many theatre companies began experimenting with new technologies and ways to bring their work to audiences. As theatres have resumed in-person performances, they are exploring how these new techniques can be incorporated into their productions. Recently one leading regional theatre company produced two versions of A Christmas Carol in parallel - one presented on stage, and the other entirely in virtual reality. They used virtual production tools including real-time motion capture, virtual humans, game engine rendering, and a new platform for multi-user VR experiences. We discuss the process, challenges, and creative decisions behind these shows, with an eye towards informing future theatrical productions.

Effects of immersion and navigation agency in virtual environments on emotions and behavioral intentions

We present a study investigating the question whether and how people’s intention to change their environmental behavior depends on the degrees of immersion and freedom of navigation when they experience a deteriorating virtual coral reef. We built the virtual reef on top of a biologically sound model of the ecology of coral reefs, which allowed us to simulate the realistic decay of reefs under adverse environmental factors. During their experience, participants witnessed those changes while they also explored the virtual environment. In a two-factorial experiment (N = 224), we investigated the effects of different degrees of immersion and different levels of navigation freedom on emotions, the feeling of presence, and participants’ intention to change their environmental behavior. The results of our analyses show that immersion and navigation have a significant effect on the participants’ emotions of sadness and the feeling of helplessness. In addition, we found a significant effect, mediated by the participants’ emotions, on the intention to change their behavior. The most striking result is, perhaps, that the highest level of immersion combined with the highest level of navigation did not lead to the highest intentions to change behavior. Overall, our results show that it is possible to raise awareness of environmental threats using virtual reality; it also seems possible to change people’s behavior regarding these threats. However, it seems that the VR experience must be carefully designed to achieve these effects: a simple combination of all affordances offered by VR technology might potentially decrease the desired effects.

Applications of Virtual and Augmented Reality for Practical Application Learning with Gamification Elements

Virtual reality and augmented reality have the potential to enhance and widespread practical learning environments in professional courses efficiently in a cost-efficient manner by limiting the costs of real resources substituting them with fixed costs from.VR/AR applications with virtual resources. There are advantages in the learning process, as practical, active and visual learning methods are more efficient and virtual and augmented reality can digitalize these procedures and replicate them at scale with different degrees of virtualization. In this work we aim to provide a framework that allows the creation of VR and AR experiences for learning or training proposes in a serious environment adding gamification elements to keep user engaged in the learning/training process. In the process gamification adaptation to VR/AR environment is demonstrated in real applications. The learning tasks in this approach are not necessarily changed or take advantage of new forms of interactions and guidance but aim to be replicated in a blend between virtual and real environments. In this regard, we hope to advance gamification application to account for more elements, such as VR/AR interaction, digital twins and digital aids in a learning application. In this article we detail possible scenarios for the application of virtual reality and augmented reality combined with machine learning in serious games and learning scenarios.

Energy- and Quality-Aware Task Offloading for WebVR Service in Terminal-Aided Mobile Edge Network

Web virtual reality (WebVR) is gaining increasing attention as interactive VR experiences become more prevalent. The high energy consumption and strict quality requirements are still significant challenges for its application in the mobile edge network. In this context, content caching and task offloading are promising solutions to save the energy of WebVR. This paper proposes a hybrid decentralized offloading architecture in which the MEC server and multiple terminals jointly participate in the caching and processing of WebVR tasks. In this framework, the graph convolutional network and unsupervised clustering algorithm are jointly applied to process the WebVR service feature graph to achieve FoV-level content caching. Moreover, WebVR users with idle computing resources assist neighboring users with performing tasks. On this basis, we propose a distributed low-bound-based alternative direction method of multiplier (LADMM) algorithm to optimize the offloading mode and the allocation of tasks and computing power resources to minimize system energy consumption. The proposed offloading mode can lower energy consumption while maintaining a good balance between delay performance and resource utilization.

Watch out for the Robot! Designing Visual Feedback Safety Techniques When Interacting With Encountered-Type Haptic Displays

Encountered-Type Haptic Displays (ETHDs) enable users to touch virtual surfaces by using robotic actuators capable of co-locating real and virtual surfaces without encumbering users with actuators. One of the main challenges of ETHDs is to ensure that the robotic actuators do not interfere with the VR experience by avoiding unexpected collisions with users. This paper presents a design space for safety techniques using visual feedback to make users aware of the robot’s state and thus reduce unintended potential collisions. The blocks that compose this design space focus on what and when the feedback is displayed and how it protects the user. Using this design space, a set of 18 techniques was developed exploring variations of the three dimensions. An evaluation questionnaire focusing on immersion and perceived safety was designed and evaluated by a group of experts, which was used to provide a first assessment of the proposed techniques.

Political Engagement in Carne y Arena by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Created by Mexican awarded director Alejandro González Iñárritu, Carne y Arena is an immersive mixed-reality installation that allows visitors to experience traumatic and violent incidents with illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican–US border. Carne y Arena’s mixed reality combines VR experience with physical components, turning it into a multisensory, bodily immersive experience. As part of the art installation, the whole VR arena is surrounded by the remains of a wall’s border; while inside, actual immigrants’ clothes and objects are also exhibited. Another component is the documentary aspect, where real-life characters recount their stories through video testimonies. Iñárritu immerses and makes the visitors experience refugees’ stories first-hand while exploring their emotional reactions to traumatic realities through a spiral of corporeal sensations and entertainment spectacle. According to Iñárritu, the intent is to subordinate technology to the human condition. Technology does mean nothing unless it can reveal or denounce people’s situations. Therefore, technology must be subordinated to humans, humanity, and art. “I despise technology,” says the filmmaker. But, has film lost the power to engage the viewers emotionally? Can virtual reality simulate refugees’ dispossession (the sense of the self) and alleviate society’s consciousness? In this paper, I examine the role of a museum installation featuring refugees’ discourses; the VR technology in bringing forward the visitor’s social engagement; and the issues the filmmaker address, such as the refugee’s experience in contemporary global society.

VR in Nursing Facilities - A randomized controlled multicenter pilot study analyzing the changes in the state of mind of seniors in nursing facilities through the viewing of 360° videos

ContextVR as an application to enhance well-being is sparsely researched in the elderly population. The aim of the pilot study was to analyze the effect of 360° videos of different categories on the state of mind of seniors in nursing facilities. Furthermore, for the implementation in everyday life, the usability of the system and the experience for seniors should be evaluated.MethodsThe VR experience was used as a supplement to existing care services in three facilities on eight subjects. Mood state was assessed using the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Happiness before and after the intervention. Demographic data and technology acceptance were collected beforehand. After the intervention, subjects were interviewed about confounding factors and side effects, and nursing home staff were interviewed about the usability of the system and the organizational concept of implementation.ResultsThere was a positive effect on state of mind. Gender and spatial mobility turned out to be influencing factors. Categories containing people, animals and action achieved the highest increases in the state of mind. Interest in using technical devices correlated negatively with the change in mood state. None of the subjects found the VR goggles distracting or reported motion sickness. Very good usability was indicated by the employees.ConclusionA very high willingness to use this technology was found among nursing staff and residents. The tendencies of the positive effect of 360° videos on the state of mind, as well as differentiation based on the mentioned characteristics gender and spatial mobility, should be verified by a larger sample to empirically validate the use of this technology to increase the quality of life.

HOLOGRAPHIC VISIONS FOR ARCHITECTURE IN A PARK

Abstract. The Monza Park, with its more than 7 square meters of green area, divided between lawn and woods, its 110,000 tall trees, its 13 farmhouses, 3 historic villas, 13 m of fences and 90,000 visitors on spring Sundays, represents an irreplaceable source of wellness and sustainability for those who live near it. The pandemic situation of the 20s and 21s by reducing the movements and the possibility of coexistence of a large public in an open space has suggested the possibility of new forms of use and interaction of the same, even remotely, reproducing accurate Virtual Reality experiences. With this paper, the authors intend to illustrate a workflow from Scan to VR applications, taking advantage of the opportunity to explore digital acquisitions and additional materials available and functional to convey the values of open space and historical monuments immersed in them. The VR experiences have been structured for the navigation from the scale of architectural detail to the environmental one, with the goal of using the accurate model results for two different and remote instrumentations: a 7m diameter 360° theatre and a Holographic table, Euclideon Hologram Table©. Both situations, as opposed to hardware tools such as headset, favour the fruition for small groups of users.

Future of Houses

The Future of Houses: Designing for a Circular Economy, is an interactive, educational VR experience born out of a larger project at Curtin University, Western Australia, that seeks to communicate scientific research into ‘Energy Futures’. Produced in a tertiary environment in 2021 by Kath Dooley and collaborators working across disciplines, the project is a single-player VR experience that combines 360-degree video and a computer-generated environment constructed using Unreal Engine. Designed for a user with an interest in ecomedia, The Future of Houses seeks to educate them on the topic of the circular economy (CE), this being a cycle of design and consumption based on the principles of material reuse and recycling. Curtin University researchers have produced significant work in this area through the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute (CUSP). One CUSP initiative is the Legacy Living Lab (L3) in Fremantle, Western Australia, a building that was constructed according to CE principles, so as to be easily assembled and dissembled, therefore facilitating recycling and reuse. The Future of Houses harnesses interactive, digital storytelling techniques, resulting in an educative and entertaining VR experience. This begins with a linear 360-degree stereoscopic video component that addresses the viewer in first-person tense, introducing CE concepts and profiling the Legacy Living Lab (L3) as one example of a CE building. After watching the video, the user then has the ability to enter a gamified virtual environment where they can explore the features of L3 as an active participant, gaining further information about sustainable features. Working in tandem, the two components seek to take the user on a transformational journey, drawing upon notions of The Hero’s Journey (Campbell 1949) and Mezirow’s phases of transformational learning in adult education (2006). The result is a project that creates a personal encounter with a CE building, which might influence the user’s future decision making related to house design and construction. A focus on user experience during the development of the work functioned as a means to unite a multidisciplinary team of sustainability researchers and narrative designers, overcoming different vocabularies and approaches to VR development. The facilitator, a screenwriter and director, moved into the territory of game developer when collaborating with a team of VR programmers on the conceptualisation of a project with multiple interactive elements. Bibliography Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books. 1949. Dooley, Kath (Director/Producer). The Future of Houses: Designing for a Circular Economy. VR experience Curtin University. 2021. Mezirow, Jack. An Overview of Transformative Learning. In Lifelong Learning: Concepts and Contexts. Edited by P. Sutherland & J. Crowther. New York and London: Routledge. 2006.

Learning by Doing

This scholarly essay is about research-creation in the field of interactive, immersive and digital non-fiction storytelling. It seeks to shed light and update this approach to research, and to identify ways in which it can be rendered more accessible to both practitioners and researchers. The essay revisits two recent factual narratives—web-documentary Field Trip (2019) and VR experience Myriad (2021), projects in which the authors were directly involved as practitioners. It positions these two digital practices in the body of literature on media innovations, before qualifying them as interactive and immersive documentaries (i-docs). Field Trip is a browser-based 92-minutes documentary taking a deep dive into the history and social struggles around the Tempelhof Field, Berlin’s former airport turned public park. Myriad is a 32-minutes immersive VR experience narrated from the perspective of globally migrating animals, sensitizing the audience to the interplay and interrelationship of all life forms. The authors explain how these projects have, in their respective and singular ways, opened spaces for iterative loops between creative practice and theory. Field Trip serves to exemplify how triangulation can be applied to creative media practice. This method, albeit a relatively classic one in research, continues to be a challenge for practitioners. The case of Myriad, in turn, is used to discuss two additional methods: core to audience and interdisciplinary iteration in experimental aesthetics. While these two methods in format development and artistic enquiry might sound familiar to practitioners, they are promising for closing some gaps in the design of academic research. The two case studies speak to the diversity of research-creation approaches, methods and formats, while at the same illustrating how research-creation, as a research mindset, can facilitate the output of two things at once: a more ‘educated’ artistic expression and more grounded academic knowledge. The essay further identifies the need to systematize and offer continuous support to researchers-creators. It argues that this fits the mandate of higher education art and design schools, which should be understood as research-creation competence centers. The paper ends on five learnings meant to encourage digital media practitioners to develop an enquiry reflex and media scholars to “get their hands dirty” in partaking in innovative creative media projects.

Online Visual Communication and Scene Reconstruction of Cruise Travel under the Background of Virtual Reality

This paper takes the cruise passenger cabin as the research object, builds the virtual environment model according to the relevant theoretical knowledge and materials, introduces and studies the theory of ergonomic design evaluation, establishes the human-machine environment evaluation index system and comprehensive evaluation model of the cruise passenger cabin, introduces several common comprehensive evaluation methods, compares the advantages and disadvantages of different methods, and combines them with this design object so as to select the applicable evaluation method to evaluate the cabin design scheme. It also introduces several common comprehensive evaluation methods, compares the advantages and disadvantages of different methods, combines them with the design object, so as to select the applicable evaluation methods to evaluate the cabin design scheme and make the cabin design evaluation more systematic, accurate, and reasonable, realizes the three-dimensional visualization of the cruise ship cabin based on virtual reality technology and other technologies, and conducts the ergonomic evaluation of the design effect. The relevant knowledge involved includes human-machine-environment system engineering theory, 3D modeling theory, hierarchical analysis theory, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation theory, and virtual reality development theory. The concept of intelligent environment design is introduced into the environmental design of the intelligent entertainment system of cruise ships, and after the systematic study of the user’s demand level and cabin environment design element system, the problems existing in it are handled and combined with intelligent products, the different functions of intelligence are classified and studied, and the different forms of control are specifically studied to provide the basis for the subsequent specific design. In the case study, an overall evaluation of the architectural aesthetics of the target ship was derived through evaluation experiments. Based on the results, specific indicators at different levels can be traced, thus providing guidance directions for optimal design. The methods such as fuzzy synthesis evaluation and the idea of integrating the evaluation process with VR experience adopted in this paper can provide reference ideas for similar studies.

VR Sickness Adaptation With Ramped Optic Flow Transfers From Abstract To Realistic Environments.

VR sickness is a major concern for many users as VR continues its expansion towards widespread everyday use. VR sickness is thought to arise, at least in part, due to the user's intolerance of conflict between the visually simulated self-motion and actual physical movement. Many mitigation strategies involve consistently modifying the visual stimulus to reduce its impact on the user, but this individualized approach can have drawbacks in terms of complexity of implementation and non-uniformity of user experience. This study presents a novel alternative approach that involves training the user to better tolerate the adverse stimulus by tapping into natural adaptive perceptual mechanisms. In this study, we recruited users with limited VR experience that reported susceptibility to VR sickness. Baseline sickness was measured as participants navigated a rich and naturalistic visual environment. Then, on successive days, participants were exposed to optic flow in a more abstract visual environment, and strength of the optic flow was successively increased by increasing the visual contrast of the scene, because strength of optic flow and the resulting vection are thought to be major causes of VR sickness. Sickness measures decreased on successive days, indicating that adaptation was successful. On the final day, participants were again exposed to the rich and naturalistic visual environment, and the adaptation was maintained, demonstrating that it is possible for adaptation to transfer from more abstract to richer and more naturalistic environments. These results demonstrate that gradual adaptation to increasing optic flow strength in well-controlled, abstract environments allows users to gradually reduce their susceptibility to sickness, thereby increasing VR accessibility for those prone to sickness.

VR tourism experiences and tourist behavior intention in COVID-19: an experience economy and mood management perspective

PurposeVirtual reality (VR) technology is a potential tool for tourism marketers to maintain the attractiveness of their destinations and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the effectiveness of VR technology in motivating potential tourists' visit intention under lockdown conditions remains unknown. An integrated model based on the experience economy framework and mood management theory was, therefore, used to explain how tourists' VR experiences affect their mood management processes and subsequent behaviors. This research also examined how perceived travel risk influenced the relationship between mood management processes and future decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a cross-sectional design based on a sample collected from a Chinese survey company, Sojump. The author surveyed 285 respondents who had experienced VR tourism activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research model was tested using partial least squares–structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results demonstrated that the four dimensions of VR experiences differently affected mood management processes, while perceived travel risk differently moderated the influence of mood management processes on visit intention and VR stickiness. This provides insights for tourism marketers to adapt to the current tourism environment and develop recovery strategies.Originality/valueIn response to gaps in the literature, this research examined the effectiveness of VR technology in driving tourists' visit intention during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing insights for tourism marketers to successfully implement VR tourism and plan timely recovery strategies.

Towards socialVR: evaluating a novel technology for watching videos together.

Social VR enables people to interact over distance with others in real-time. It allows remote people, typically represented as avatars, to communicate and perform activities together in a shared virtual environment, extending the capabilities of traditional social platforms like Facebook and Netflix. This paper explores the benefits and drawbacks provided by a lightweight and low-cost Social VR platform (SocialVR), in which users are captured by several cameras and reconstructed in real-time. In particular, the paper contributes with (1) the design and evaluation of an experimental protocol for Social VR experiences; (2) the report of a production workflow for this new type of media experiences; and (3) the results of experiments with both end-users (N = 15 pairs) and professionals (N = 22 companies) to evaluate the potential of the SocialVR platform. Results from the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews show that end-users rated positively towards the experiences provided by the SocialVR platform, which enabled them to sense emotions and communicate effortlessly. End-users perceived the photo-realistic experience of SocialVR similar to face-to-face scenarios and appreciated this new creative medium. From a commercial perspective, professionals confirmed the potential of this communication medium and encourage further research for the adoption of the platform in the commercial landscape.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10055-022-00651-5.

Preview the Products on Display at Display Week 2022

Preview the Products on Display at Display Week 2022

I Know It Is Not Real (And That Matters) Media Awareness vs. Presence in a Parallel Processing Account of the VR Experience

Inspired by the widely recognized idea that in VR/XR, not only presence but also encountered plausibility is relevant (Slater, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 2009, 364 (1535), 3549–3557), we propose a general psychological parallel processing account to explain users’ VR and XR experience. The model adopts a broad psychological view by building on interdisciplinary literature on the dualistic nature of perceiving and experiencing (mediated) representations. It proposes that perceptual sensations like presence are paralleled by users’ belief that “this is not really happening,” which we refer to asmedia awareness. We review the developmental underpinnings of basic media awareness, and argue that it is triggered in users’ conscious exposure to VR/XR. During exposure, the salience of media awareness can vary dynamically due to factors like encountered sensory and semantic (in)consistencies. Our account sketches media awareness and presence as two parallel processes that together define a situation as a media exposure situation. We also review potential joint effects on subsequent psychological and behavioral responses that characterize the user experience in VR/XR. We conclude the article with a programmatic outlook on testable assumptions and open questions for future research.

Temporal Development of Sense of Presence and Cybersickness during an Immersive VR Experience

Following the advances in modern head-mounted displays, research exploring the human experience of virtual environments has seen a surge in interest. Researchers have examined how to promote individuals’ sense of presence, i.e., their experience of “being” in the VE, as well as to diminish the negative side effects of cybersickness. Studies investigating the relationship between sense of presence and cybersickness have reported heterogeneous results. Authors that found a positive relation have argued that the phenomena have shared cognitive underpinnings. However, recent literature has reported that positive associations can be explained by the confounding factor of immersion. The current study aims to investigate how cybersickness and sense of presence are associated and develop over time. During the experiment, participants were exposed to a virtual roller coaster and presented orally with questions aimed to quantify their perceived sense of presence and cybersickness. The results of the experiment indicate that cybersickness and sense of presence are both modulated by the time spent in the virtual setting. The utilized short measures for sense of presence and cybersickness were found to be reliable alternatives to multi-item questionnaires.