Eye guidance during real-world scene search:The role color plays in central and peripheral vision

The visual system utilizes environmental features to direct gaze efficiently when locating objects. While previous research has isolated various features' contributions to gaze guidance, these studies generally used sparse displays and did not investigate how features facilitated search as a function of their location on the visual field. The current study investigated how features across the visual field-particularly color-facilitate gaze guidance during real-world search. A gaze-contingent window followed participants' eye movements, restricting color information to specified regions. Scene images were presented in full color, with color in the periphery and gray in central vision or gray in the periphery and color in central vision, or in grayscale. Color conditions were crossed with a search cue manipulation, with the target cued either with a word label or an exact picture. Search times increased as color information in the scene decreased. A gaze-data based decomposition of search time revealed color-mediated effects on specific subprocesses of search. Color in peripheral vision facilitated target localization, whereas color in central vision facilitated target verification. Picture cues facilitated search, with the effects of cue specificity and scene color combining additively. When available, the visual system utilizes the environment's color information to facilitate different real-world visual search behaviors based on the location within the visual field

A very real Virtual Society: some macrosociological reflections on "Second Life"

"Contrasting with various 'virtual communities', Second Life is a genuine 'virtual society' with the potential to provide a universal framework of interoperability between unlimited masses of individual as well as collective actors. By mirroring (end even amplifying) the acentrism and individualism of contemporary society, it is characterized by precarious member motivation, conservative conventionalism, a strong focus on money, a tendency toward class formation and a conspicuous deficit in politics and the public sphere. On the other hand, it contrasts with 'First Life' by offering malleable artifacts and situated environments which are likely to transform deeply the way people surf and interact on the net." (author's abstract

Modulating the performance of VR navigation tasks using different methods of presenting visual information

Spatial navigation is an essential ability in our daily lives that we use to move through different locations. In Virtual Reality (VR), the environments that users navigate may be large and similar to real world places. It is usually desirable to guide users in order to prevent them from getting lost and to make it easier for them to reach the goal or discover important spots in the environment. However, doing so in a way that the guidance is not intrusive, breaking the immersion and sense of presence, nor too hard to notice, therefore not being useful, can be a challenge. In this work we conducted an experiment in which we adapted a probabilistic learning paradigm: the Weather Prediction task to spatial navigation in VR. Subjects navigated one of the two versions of procedurally generated T-junction mazes in Virtual Reality. In one version, the environment contained visual cues in the form of street signs whose presence predicted the correct turning direction. In the other version the cues were present, but were not predictive. Results showed that when subjects navigated the mazes with the predictive cues they made less mistakes, and therefore the cues helped them navigate the environments. A comparison with previous Neuroscience literature revealed that the strategies used by subjects to solve the task were different than in the original 2D experiment. This work is intended to be used as a basis to further improve spatial navigation in VR with more immersive and implicit methods, and as another example of how the Cognitive Neurosicence and Virtual Reality research fields can greatly benefit each other

Correlating eye gaze direction, depth and vehicle information on an interactive map for driver training

The over represented number of novice drivers involved in crashes is alarming. Driver training is one of the interventions aimed at mitigating the number of crashes that involve young drivers. Experienced drivers have better hazard perception ability compared to inexperienced drivers. Eye gaze patterns have been found to be an indicator of the driver's competency level. The aim of this paper is to develop an in-vehicle system which correlates information about the driver's gaze and vehicle dynamics, which is then used to assist driver trainers in assessing driving competency. This system allows visualization of the complete driving manoeuvre data on interactive maps. It uses an eye tracker and perspective projection algorithms to compute the depth of gaze and plots it on Google maps. This interactive map also features the trajectory of the vehicle and turn indicator usage. This system allows efficient and user friendly analysis of the driving task. It can be used by driver trainers and trainees to understand objectively the risks encountered during driving manoeuvres. This paper presents a prototype that plots the driver's eye gaze depth and direction on an interactive map along with the vehicle dynamics information. This prototype will be used in future to study the difference in gaze patterns in novice and experienced drivers prior to a certain manoeuvre

Can I Borrow Your ATM? Using Virtual Reality for (Simulated) In Situ Authentication Research

In situ evaluations of novel authentication systems, where the system is evaluated in its intended usage context, are often infeasible due to ethical and legal constraints. Consequently, researchers evaluate their authentication systems in the lab, which questions the eco-logical validity. In this work, we explore how VR can overcome the shortcomings of authentication studies conducted in the lab and contribute towards more realistic authentication research. We built a highly realistic automated teller machine (ATM) and a VR replica to investigate through a user study (N=20) the impact of in situ evaluations on an authentication system‘s usability results. We evaluated and compared: Lab studies in the real world, lab studies in VR, in situ studies in the real world, and in situ studies in VR. Our findings highlight 1) VR‘s great potential to circumvent potential restrictions researchers experience when evaluating authentication schemes and 2) the impact of the context on an authentication system‘s usability evaluation results. In situ ATM authentications took longer (+24.71% in the real world, +14.17% in VR) than authentications in a traditional (VR) lab environment and elicited a higher sense of being part of an ATM authentication scenario compared to a real-world and VR-based evaluation in the lab. Our quantitative findings, along with participants‘ qualitative feedback, provide first evidence of increased authentication realism when using VR for in situ authentication research. We provide researchers with a novel research approach to conduct (simulated) in situ authentication re-search, discuss our findings in the light of prior works, and conclude with three key lessons to support researchers in deciding when to use VR for in situ authentication research

Developing a protocol and experimental setup for using a humanoid robot to assist children with autism to develop visual perspective taking skills

Visual Perspective Taking (VPT) is the ability to see the world from another person's perspective, taking into account what they see and how they see it, drawing upon both spatial and social information. Children with autism often find it difficult to understand that other people might have perspectives, viewpoints, beliefs and knowledge that are different from their own, which is a fundamental aspect of VPT. In this research we aimed to develop a methodology to assist children with autism develop their VPT skills using a humanoid robot and present results from our first long-term pilot study. The games we devised were implemented with the Kaspar robot and, to our knowledge, this is the first attempt to improve the VPT skills of children with autism through playing and interacting with a humanoid robot. We describe in detail the standard pre- and post- assessments that we performed with the children in order to measure their progress and also the inclusion criteria derived from the results for future studies in this field. Our findings suggest that some children may benefit from this approach of learning about VPT, which shows that this approach merits further investigation.Peer reviewe

Virtual Reality Observations: Using Virtual Reality to Augment Lab-Based Shoulder Surfing Research

Given the difficulties of studying the shoulder surfing resistance of authentication systems in a live setting, researchers often ask study participants to shoulder surf authentications by watching two-dimensional (2D) video recordings of a user authenticating. How-ever, these video recordings do not provide participants with a realistic shoulder surfing experience, creating uncertainty in the value and validity of lab-based shoulder surfing experiments. In this work, we exploit the unique characteristics of virtual reality (VR) and study the use of non-immersive/immersive VR recordings for shoulder surfing research. We conducted a user study (N=18) to explore the strengths and weaknesses of such a VR-based shoulder surfing research approach. Our results suggest that immersive VR observations result in a more realistic shoulder surfing experience, in a significantly higher sense of being part of the authentication environment, in a greater feeling of spatial presence, and in a higher level of involvement than 2D video observations without impacting participants’ observation performance. This suggests that studying shoulder surfing in VR is advantageous in many ways compared to currently used approaches, e.g., participants can freely choose their observation angle rather than being limited to a fixed observation angle as done in current methods. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using VR for shoulder surfing research and conclude with four recommendations to help researchers decide when (and when not) to employ VR for shoulder surfing research in the authentication research domain