Assessing User Experience in A Virtual Reality Crowd Simulation

Agent-based crowd simulations are used for modelling building and space usage, allowing designers to explore hypothetical real-world scenarios, including extraordinary events such as evacuations. Existing work which engages Virtual Reality (VR) as a platform for crowd simulations has been primarily focussed on the validation of simulation models through observation; that is the use of embellishments to enhance a sense of immersion or constrained studies of proxemics. However, human participation in crowd simulations also has the potential to provide richer and more informative simulation outcomes. This issue has not yet been widely considered by researchers and warrants further study of user experience and behaviour. This work examines VR crowd simulation through the lens of user experience and simulation outcomes. A task-based simulation scenario has been created in which a participant walks freely, and interacts with agents using the same social-force model which mediates agent-to-agent interactions. It examines and reports the effects of crowd density on both the users affective state and behaviour, also comparing it with that of simulated agents. The results gained from this study indicate a significant increase in negative affect with density, measured using a self-report scale, it also shows significant differences in some aspects of user behaviour, such as increased instinctive reactions during high-density situations. This work then discusses how the results relate to VR simulation design for mixed human-agent scenarios