The Challenges in Modeling Human Performance in 3D Space with Fitts’ Law

With the rapid growth in virtual reality technologies, object interaction is becoming increasingly more immersive, elucidating human perception and leading to promising directions towards evaluating human performance under different settings. This spike in technological growth exponentially increased the need for a human performance metric in 3D space. Fitts' law is perhaps the most widely used human prediction model in HCI history attempting to capture human movement in lower dimensions. Despite the collective effort towards deriving an advanced extension of a 3D human performance model based on Fitts' law, a standardized metric is still missing. Moreover, most of the extensions to date assume or limit their findings to certain settings, effectively disregarding important variables that are fundamental to 3D object interaction. In this review, we investigate and analyze the most prominent extensions of Fitts' law and compare their characteristics pinpointing to potentially important aspects for deriving a higher-dimensional performance model. Lastly, we mention the complexities, frontiers as well as potential challenges that may lay ahead.Comment: Accepted at ACM CHI 2021 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21 Extended Abstracts

Emotion Recognition in Immersive Virtual Reality: From Statistics to Affective Computing

[EN] Emotions play a critical role in our daily lives, so the understanding and recognition of emotional responses is crucial for human research. Affective computing research has mostly used non-immersive two-dimensional (2D) images or videos to elicit emotional states. However, immersive virtual reality, which allows researchers to simulate environments in controlled laboratory conditions with high levels of sense of presence and interactivity, is becoming more popular in emotion research. Moreover, its synergy with implicit measurements and machine-learning techniques has the potential to impact transversely in many research areas, opening new opportunities for the scientific community. This paper presents a systematic review of the emotion recognition research undertaken with physiological and behavioural measures using head-mounted displays as elicitation devices. The results highlight the evolution of the field, give a clear perspective using aggregated analysis, reveal the current open issues and provide guidelines for future research.This research was funded by European Commission, grant number H2020-825585 HELIOS.Marín-Morales, J.; Llinares Millán, MDC.; Guixeres Provinciale, J.; Alcañiz Raya, ML. (2020). Emotion Recognition in Immersive Virtual Reality: From Statistics to Affective Computing. Sensors. 20(18):1-26. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185163S126201

A Hybrid Projection to Widen the Vertical Field of View with Large Screens to Improve the Perception of Personal Space in Architectural Project Review

In this paper, we suggest using a hybrid projection to increase the vertical geometric field of view without incurring large deformations to preserve distance perception and to allow the seeing of the surrounding ground. We have conducted an experiment in furnished and unfurnished houses to evaluate the perception of distances and the spatial comprehension. Results show that the hybrid projection improves the perception of surrounding ground which leads to an improvement in the spatial comprehension. Moreover, it preserves the perception of distances and sizes by providing a performance similar to the perspective one in the task of distance estimation

Human robot ınteraction network design with wearable wireless MIMU sensors for upper extremity exoskeleton robot

Bu araştırma kapsamında insan vücuduna uyumlu, insan hareketlerini destekleyen iki serbestlik dereceli bir üst-ekstremite dış iskelet robot sisteminin kontrolü için giyilebilir kablosuz sensörler MIMU (ivmeölçer, jiroskop) vasıtası ile insan robot etkileşim ağı tasarımı gerçekleştirilmiştir. Kişinin üst ve alt kol uzuvlarına bağlı iki adet MIMU sensörden açısal ivmelenme, jiroskop ve manyetometre bilgileri alınıp, AHRS (Attitude and Heading Reference Systems) algoritması ile bu sensör verileri bütünleştirilip kişinin üst ekstremite hareketine ilişkilin (üst kol, alt kol) kuaternion yönelim matrisi hesaplanmıştır. Kinematik analiz ile de kuaternion matrisi verileri kullanılarak omuz ve dirsek eklemlerine ait Euler yönelim açıları (x, y, z eksenleri için) hesaplanmıştır. Geliştirilen etkileşim ağı ile laboratuvar olanakları ile tasarlanan ve imalatı yapılan iki serbestlik dereceli prototip üst ekstremite dış iskelet robot kolun gerçek zamanlı hareket kontrolü gerçekleştirilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, kullanıcı kişi kolunu hareket ettirirken, dış iskelet robotta senkronize olarak aynı hareketi gerçekleştirmektedir.Within the scope of this research, human robot interaction network design was carried out by means of wearable wireless sensors MIMU (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) for the control of a two-degree upper-extremity exoskeletal robot system compatible with human body and supporting human movements. Angular acceleration, gyroscope information was obtained from two MIMU sensors connected to the upper and lower limbs of the subject, and AHRS (Attitude and Heading Reference Systems) algorithm was integrated with these sensor data and the upper extremity movement (upper arm, lower arm) quaternion orientation matrix was calculated. Euler orientation angles (for x, y, z axes) of shoulder and elbow joints were calculated by using kinematic analysis. With the developed interaction network, real time motion control of two degrees of freedom prototype upper extremity exoskeleton robot arm which is designed and manufactured with laboratory facilities was realized. As a result, the user performs the same movement synchronously in the exoskeleton robot as the person moves the arm

Review of three-dimensional human-computer interaction with focus on the leap motion controller

Modern hardware and software development has led to an evolution of user interfaces from command-line to natural user interfaces for virtual immersive environments. Gestures imitating real-world interaction tasks increasingly replace classical two-dimensional interfaces based on Windows/Icons/Menus/Pointers (WIMP) or touch metaphors. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to survey the state-of-the-art Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) techniques with a focus on the special field of three-dimensional interaction. This includes an overview of currently available interaction devices, their applications of usage and underlying methods for gesture design and recognition. Focus is on interfaces based on the Leap Motion Controller (LMC) and corresponding methods of gesture design and recognition. Further, a review of evaluation methods for the proposed natural user interfaces is given

Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments

This open access book tackles the design of 3D spatial interactions in an audio-centered and audio-first perspective, providing the fundamental notions related to the creation and evaluation of immersive sonic experiences. The key elements that enhance the sensation of place in a virtual environment (VE) are: Immersive audio: the computational aspects of the acoustical-space properties of Virutal Reality (VR) technologies Sonic interaction: the human-computer interplay through auditory feedback in VE VR systems: naturally support multimodal integration, impacting different application domains Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments will feature state-of-the-art research on real-time auralization, sonic interaction design in VR, quality of the experience in multimodal scenarios, and applications. Contributors and editors include interdisciplinary experts from the fields of computer science, engineering, acoustics, psychology, design, humanities, and beyond. Their mission is to shape an emerging new field of study at the intersection of sonic interaction design and immersive media, embracing an archipelago of existing research spread in different audio communities and to increase among the VR communities, researchers, and practitioners, the awareness of the importance of sonic elements when designing immersive environments

Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments

This open access book tackles the design of 3D spatial interactions in an audio-centered and audio-first perspective, providing the fundamental notions related to the creation and evaluation of immersive sonic experiences. The key elements that enhance the sensation of place in a virtual environment (VE) are: Immersive audio: the computational aspects of the acoustical-space properties of Virutal Reality (VR) technologies Sonic interaction: the human-computer interplay through auditory feedback in VE VR systems: naturally support multimodal integration, impacting different application domains Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments will feature state-of-the-art research on real-time auralization, sonic interaction design in VR, quality of the experience in multimodal scenarios, and applications. Contributors and editors include interdisciplinary experts from the fields of computer science, engineering, acoustics, psychology, design, humanities, and beyond. Their mission is to shape an emerging new field of study at the intersection of sonic interaction design and immersive media, embracing an archipelago of existing research spread in different audio communities and to increase among the VR communities, researchers, and practitioners, the awareness of the importance of sonic elements when designing immersive environments

Survey of Motion Tracking Methods Based on Inertial Sensors: A Focus on Upper Limb Human Motion

Motion tracking based on commercial inertial measurements units (IMUs) has been widely studied in the latter years as it is a cost-effective enabling technology for those applications in which motion tracking based on optical technologies is unsuitable. This measurement method has a high impact in human performance assessment and human-robot interaction. IMU motion tracking systems are indeed self-contained and wearable, allowing for long-lasting tracking of the user motion in situated environments. After a survey on IMU-based human tracking, five techniques for motion reconstruction were selected and compared to reconstruct a human arm motion. IMU based estimation was matched against motion tracking based on the Vicon marker-based motion tracking system considered as ground truth. Results show that all but one of the selected models perform similarly (about 35 mm average position estimation error)

Emergence of technostress in multi-user VR environments for work-related purposes

The virtual reality market is growing exponentially with forecasts indicating the global virtual reality market-scale to rise by almost eighty-three percent from 2022 by 2025. Social virtual reality is the virtual environment designed to function as a communication platform—comprising of multi-user characteristics such as shared spaces, avatar-based interactions, and tools facilitating remote collaboration. Despite the use of virtual reality and social virtual reality in organizations, the research highlighting the stress experienced by the users of multi-user virtual reality environments in organizations remain sparse. To address this gap in the research, this study applies the concept of technostress. While prior literature on technostress has highlighted several stress creating conditions with severe consequences (i.e., strains) for organizational use as well as use of virtual reality and social virtual reality, very little remains known about the stress creating conditions and the emergence of technostress in users using multi-user virtual reality in a work-related setting. A qualitative analysis using the critical incident technique was employed in this paper to highlight the stress creating factors and subsequent strains due to using social virtual reality in the organizational context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with open-ended questions to glean the experiences of the users who are active in the multi-user VR environments for work-related purposes. The study identified four stressor categories which contained various stress creating conditions relevant to the context and therefore contributing to the existing literature of technostress. The study also identifies two strain categories that emerged. Furthermore, the study discusses the common patterns between the technostressors and the subsequent strains, opening new avenues of research on this topic