Effectiveness of an Immersive Virtual Environment (CAVE) for Teaching Pedestrian Crossing to Children with PDD-NOS

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) exhibit a range of developmental disabilities, with mild to severe effects in social interaction and communication. Children with PDD-NOS, Autism and co-existing conditions are facing enormous challenges in their lives, dealing with their difficulties in sensory perception, repetitive behaviors and interests. These challenges result in them being less independent or not independent at all. Part of becoming independent involves being able to function in real world settings, settings that are not controlled. Pedestrian crossings fall under this category: as children (and later as adults) they have to learn to cross roads safely. In this paper, we report on a study we carried out with 6 children with PDD-NOS over a period of four (4) days using a VR CAVE virtual environment to teach them how to safely cross at a pedestrian crossing. Results indicated that most children were able to achieve the desired goal of learning the task, which was verified in the end of the 4-day period by having them cross a real pedestrian crossing (albeit with their parent/educator discretely next to them for safety reasons)

Stepping into safety: a systematic review of extended reality technology applications in enhancing vulnerable road user safety

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Emerald in Smart and Sustainable Built Environment on 04/07/2024, available online: https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-10-2023-0321 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Purpose In alignment with the European Union’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate road fatalities by 2050, leveraging technological advancements becomes crucial for addressing the challenges of vulnerable road users (VRUs), and for mitigating the impact of human error. Despite increasing scholarly interest in applications of extended reality (XR), a research gap persists, particularly in the role of XR in transportation safety. Therefore, the aim of the study was to fill this gap through a systematic literature review to evaluate comprehensively the potential scope and practical applicability of XR technologies in enhancing the safety of VRUs. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review was undertaken, following PRISMA guidelines meticulously, in which 80 relevant articles from databases, such as Scopus and Science Direct, were identified and analysed. Findings The results of the analysis revealed the potential of XR beyond pedestrians and cyclists, and highlighted a lack of research about the impact of XR with regard to the personal traits or abilities of VRUs. The results of a thorough analysis confirmed the potential of XR as a promising solution for an approach to collaborative co-creation in addressing the safety challenges of VRUs. In addition, the integration of eye-tracking with virtual reality emerged as a promising innovation for enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users. Research limitations/implications Theoretical implications include enhancing the understanding of applications of XR in VRUs’ safety and providing insights into future research possibilities and methodological approaches. Valuable insights into search strategies and inclusion-exclusion criteria can guide future research methodologies. Practical implications Practically, the findings from the study offer insights to assist urban planners and transportation authorities in incorporating XR technologies effectively for VRUs safety. Identifying areas for further development of XR technology could inspire innovation and investment in solutions designed to meet the safety needs of VRUs, such as enhanced visualisation tools and immersive training simulations. Originality/value The findings of previous research underscore the vast potential of XR technologies within the built environment, yet their utilisation remains limited in the urban transport sector. The intricacies of urban traffic scenarios pose significant challenges for VRUs, making participation in mobility studies hazardous. Hence, it is crucial to explore the scope of emerging technologies in addressing VRUs issues as a pre-requisite for establishing comprehensive safety measures.The SOTERIA project has received funding from the European Commissions’ Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 101077433, as well as by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [Grant Nos: 10052969, 10058247, 10059948, and 10064506] to whom all partner organisations and authors express their sincere gratitude.Published onlin

Stepping into safety: A systematic review of extended reality technology applications in enhancing vulnerable road user safety

Purpose-In alignment with the European Union’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate road fatalities by 2050, leveraging technological advancements becomes crucial for addressing the challenges of vulnerable road users (VRUs), and for mitigating the impact of human error. Despite increasing scholarly interest in applications of extended reality (XR), a research gap persists, particularly in the role of XR in transportation safety. Therefore, the aim of the study was to fill this gap through a systematic literature review to evaluatecomprehensively the potential scope and practical applicability of XR technologies in enhancing the safety of VRUs.Design/methodology/approach – A systematic review was undertaken, following PRISMA guidelinesmeticulously, in which 80 relevant articles from databases, such as Scopus and Science Direct, were identified and analysed.Findings – The results of the analysis revealed the potential of XR beyond pedestrians and cyclists, and highlighted a lack of research about the impact of XR with regard to the personal traits or abilities of VRUs.The results of a thorough analysis confirmed the potential of XR as a promising solution for an approach to collaborative co-creation in addressing the safety challenges of VRUs. In addition, the integration of eye tracking with virtual reality emerged as a promising innovation for enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users.Research limitations/implications – Theoretical implications include enhancing the understanding ofapplications of XR in VRUs’ safety and providing insights into future research possibilities and methodological approaches. Valuable insights into search strategies and inclusion-exclusion criteria canguide future research methodologies.Practical implications – Practically, the findings from the study offer insights to assist urban planners and transportation authorities in incorporating XR technologies effectively for VRUs safety. Identifying areas for further development of XR technology could inspire innovation and investment in solutions designed to meet the safety needs of VRUs, such as enhanced visualisation tools and immersive training simulations.Originality/value – The findings of previous research underscore the vast potential of XR technologies within the built environment, yet their utilisation remains limited in the urban transport sector. The intricaciesof urban traffic scenarios pose significant challenges for VRUs, making participation in mobility studies hazardous. Hence, it is crucial to explore the scope of emerging technologies in addressing VRUs issues as a pre-requisite for establishing comprehensive safety measures

Evaluation of PC-Based Virtual Reality as a Tool to Analyze Pedestrian Behavior at Midblock Crossings

The aim of this research was to analyze if current generation PC-driven virtual reality simulations can be used to accurately mimic and therefore, observe behavior at a crosswalk. Toward that goal, the following research tasks were carried out: a) Designing a 3D virtual crosswalk and recruiting volunteers to wear the HTC Vive headset and to walk across the street, b) Setting up cameras near the midblock crosswalk on University Drive at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo to observe pedestrians, and c) Comparing pedestrian behavior data from both the virtual and real midblock crosswalk. The comparison was based on the following criteria: a) Pedestrian walking speed, b) Observation patterns prior to crossing the road, characterized by glancing left and right to detect cars, and c) Pedestrians’ decisions as to where to cross, defined by if they chose to walk directly on or outside of the midblock crosswalk. Walking speed and the number of pedestrians who looked left and right before crossing were significantly different in both the virtual and real environments. On the other hand, the proportion of people who chose to walk on the crosswalk was similar in both environments. This result indicates that there is a future potential in using virtual reality to analyze pedestrian behavior at roundabouts. Although this study showed that PC-driven virtual reality is not effective in replicating pedestrian walking speeds or pedestrian observation patterns at a midblock crosswalk, researchers may expect PC-driven virtual reality to have greater applications within the transportation discipline once the technology improves over the years. Potential improvements in technology that would help include being wireless, allowing users to walk in a non-confining space, and making the equipment more affordable, allowing the technology to become more mainstream

Design and application of an immersive virtual reality system to enhance emotional skills for children with autism spectrum disorders

This paper proposes the design and application of an immersive virtual reality system to improve and train the emotional skills of students with autism spectrum disorders. It has been designed for primary school students between the ages of 7–12 and all participants have a confirmed diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. The immersive environment allows the student to train and develop different social situations in a structured, visual and continuous manner. The use of a computer vision system to automatically determine the child's emotional state is proposed. This system has been created with two goals in mind, the first to update the social situations, with the student's emotional mood taken into account, and the second to confirm, automatically, if the child's behavior is appropriate in the represented social situation. The results described in this paper show a significant improvement in the children's emotional competences, in comparison with the results obtained until now using earlier virtual reality systems

Children on the Autism Spectrum and the Use of Virtual Reality for Supporting Social Skills

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by differences in socio-pragmatic communication. These conditions are allocated within a “spectrum” of phenotypic variability. Virtual reality (VR) is a useful tool for healthcare intervention and particularly safely advancing social abilities in children with ASD. Methods: In our study two types of intervention for improving social skills were compared: (i) emotional training obtained by the use of virtual reality (Gr1), (ii) traditional emotional training performed individually with a therapist (Gr2). We aimed to identify the intervention with the shortest acquisition time for the proposed social tasks. Results: Our findings show that both types of intervention had the same acquisition time for the recognition of primary emotions. However, for the use of primary and secondary emotions, the group using VR showed shorter acquisition times. Conclusions: These findings together with previous preliminary datasuggest that VR can be a promising, dynamic and effective practice for the support of basic and complex social skills of these individuals

The whole-body motor skills of children with autism spectrum disorder taking goal-directed actions in virtual reality

Many symptoms of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are evident in early infancy, but ASD is usually diagnosed much later by procedures lacking objective measurements. It is necessary to anticipate the identification of ASD by improving the objectivity of the procedure and the use of ecological settings. In this context, atypical motor skills are reaching consensus as a promising ASD biomarker, regardless of the level of symptom severity. This study aimed to assess differences in the whole-body motor skills between 20 children with ASD and 20 children with typical development during the execution of three tasks resembling regular activities presented in virtual reality. The virtual tasks asked to perform precise and goal-directed actions with different limbs vary in their degree of freedom of movement. Parametric and non-parametric statistical methods were applied to analyze differences in children's motor skills. The findings endorsed the hypothesis that when particular goal-directed movements are required, the type of action could modulate the presence of motor abnormalities in ASD. In particular, the ASD motor abnormalities emerged in the task requiring to take with the upper limbs goal-directed actions with low degree of freedom. The motor abnormalities covered (1) the body part mainly involved in the action, and (2) further body parts not directly involved in the movement. Findings were discussed against the background of atypical prospective control of movements and visuomotor discoordination in ASD. These findings contribute to advance the understanding of motor skills in ASD while deepening ecological and objective assessment procedures based on VR

Towards a Service-Oriented Architecture Framework for Educational Serious Games

Producing educational serious games can be costly and time-consuming. The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach of software development can offer a solution to reduce costs and foment serious games development. In this work, we apply a model called Activity Theory-based Model of Serious Games (ATMSG) for identifying existing relevant components that can be reused for different educational serious games. We apply the derived structure to classify the elements of an existing game and to identify how it can be refactored and expanded following the SOA paradigm

Supporting Collaborative Learning in Computer-Enhanced Environments

As computers have expanded into almost every aspect of our lives, the ever-present graphical user interface (GUI) has begun facing its limitations. Demanding its own share of attention, GUIs move some of the users\u27 focus away from the task, particularly when the task is 3D in nature or requires collaboration. Researchers are therefore exploring other means of human-computer interaction. Individually, some of these new techniques show promise, but it is the combination of multiple approaches into larger systems that will allow us to more fully replicate our natural behavior within a computing environment. As computers become more capable of understanding our varied natural behavior (speech, gesture, etc.), the less we need to adjust our behavior to conform to computers\u27 requirements. Such capabilities are particularly useful where children are involved, and make using computers in education all the more appealing. Herein are described two approaches and implementations of educational computer systems that work not by user manipulation of virtual objects, but rather, by user manipulation of physical objects within their environment. These systems demonstrate how new technologies can promote collaborative learning among students, thereby enhancing both the students\u27 knowledge and their ability to work together to achieve even greater learning. With these systems, the horizon of computer-facilitated collaborative learning has been expanded. Included among this expansion is identification of issues for general and special education students, and applications in a variety of domains, which have been suggested