Towards transparent telepresence

It is proposed that the concept of transparent telepresence can be closely approached through high fidelity technological mediation. It is argued that the matching of the system capabilities to those of the human user will yield a strong sense of immersion and presence at a remote site. Some applications of such a system are noted. The concept is explained and critical system elements are described together with an overview of some of the necessary system specifications

What is embodiment? a psychometric approach

What is it like to have a body? The present study takes a psychometric approach to this question. We collected structured introspective reports of the rubber hand illusion, to systematically investigate the structure of bodily self-consciousness. Participants observed a rubber hand that was stroked either synchronously or asynchronously with their own hand and then made proprioceptive judgments of the location of their own hand and used Likert scales to rate their agreement or disagreement with 27 statements relating to their subjective experience of the illusion. Principal components analysis of this data revealed four major components of the experience across conditions, which we interpret as: embodiment of rubber hand, loss of own hand, movement, and affect. In the asynchronous condition, an additional fifth component, deafference, was found. Secondary analysis of the embodiment of runner hand component revealed three subcomponents in both conditions: ownership, location, and agency. The ownership and location components were independent significant predictors of proprioceptive biases induced by the illusion. These results suggest that psychometric tools may provide a rich method for studying the structure of conscious experience, and point the way towards an empirically rigorous phenomenology

Media Presence and Inner Presence: The Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality Technologies

Abstract. Presence is widely accepted as the key concept to be considered in any research involving human interaction with Virtual Reality (VR). Since its original description, the concept of presence has developed over the past decade to be considered by many researchers as the essence of any experience in a virtual environment. The VR generating systems comprise two main parts: a technological component and a psychological experience. The different relevance given to them produced two different but coexisting visions of presence: the rationalist and the psychological/ecological points of view. The rationalist point of view considers a VR system as a collection of specific machines with the necessity of the inclusion \ud of the concept of presence. The researchers agreeing with this approach describe the sense of presence as a function of the experience of a given medium (Media Presence). The main result of this approach is the definition of presence as the perceptual illusion of non-mediation produced by means of the disappearance of the medium from the conscious attention of the subject. At the other extreme, there \ud is the psychological or ecological perspective (Inner Presence). Specifically, this perspective considers presence as a neuropsychological phenomenon, evolved from the interplay of our biological and cultural inheritance, whose goal is the control of the human activity. \ud Given its key role and the rate at which new approaches to understanding and examining presence are appearing, this chapter draws together current research on presence to provide an up to date overview of the most widely accepted approaches to its understanding and measurement

Perception of Presence in a Mixed-Reality Training Environment

Ground troop training within the Army typically involves three kinds of training: live mission rehearsal, virtual or simulated training exercises (e.g., within a Humvee simulator), and constructive training, in which warfighters battle artificially intelligent enemies in a video game format. Some leading edge training missions merge these formats to offer full LVC training (live, virtual, constructive) in a mixed-reality environment in which trainees rehearse in a physically immersive setting that is augmented with simulated constructive entities and integrated with virtual entities controlled by trainees at other locations. In this pilot study, a number of human factors that contribute to a sense of immersed presence were evaluated by 12 ROTC cadets engaged in a scenario within a mixed-reality training environment. Participants were evaluated via survey, interview, and After Action Review (AAR). Participants reported reasonably high levels of involvement on several measures, and the AAR offered meaningful objective measurements. The combined results provide a rich dataset that establishes a baseline for the participants’ sense of presence and provides useful insights into the environment’s human-system interactions, thus guiding future development

Introducing a Patient with Diabetes Experiencing the Social Determinants of Health to Students through Cinematic Virtual Reality

Background: Cinematic virtual reality (cine-VR) is an innovative educational technique allowing users to immerse themselves in three-dimensional sensory environments. Cine-VR gives access to life-like medical encounters without risk or harm to the patient and offers insight into the lived experience of patients. Storytelling is a powerful tool to help health professions students to immerse themselves in another’s experience. We utilized a diabetes cine-VR training to highlight social determinants of health and impact on patient engagement. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of web-based diabetes cine-VR training to improve diabetes attitudes and empathy among health professional students. Methods: Our institution utilized the cine-VR web-based training for several healthcare profession student programs. We conducted paired t-tests to assess changes in diabetes attitudes and empathy at baseline and after the training. All analyses used SPSS version 26.0 (SPSS Inc.). Statistical significance was defined as P\u3c0.05. Results: We had a total of 127 students participate including Doctor of Physical Therapy students (60), Pharmacy students (10), and Physician Assistant students (57). Following viewing the 12 modules, we observed improvements in four of the diabetes attitude subscales: “Seriousness of type 2 diabetes” (P\u3c0.001); “Value of tight glucose control” (P=0.01); “Psychosocial impact of diabetes” (P\u3c0.001); and “Attitude toward patient autonomy” (P\u3c0.001). In addition, we observed significant improvements in empathy (P\u3c0.001). Conclusions: Diabetes is a complex disease that involves an individual’s physical, social, and emotional well-being. To holistically meet the needs of people with diabetes, we must train our health professions students to recognize and appreciate the social needs of their patients. Our findings support the use of cine-VR trainings to improve diabetes attitudes and empathy. Source of Funding for this Research: Osteopathic Heritage Foundationhttps://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/com_hosp_pres/1000/thumbnail.jp

Different Individual’s Impact on Learning Performance in Virtual Reality

Motivation This study cooperated with National Palace Museum and the aim is to determinate the difference between various personal characteristics on learning performance in virtual reality (VR), to find out what kind of personality can have a better impact on performance and also want to raise people’s interests in learning by using virtual reality. According to the current application on VR, it has been widely utilized in surgery simulation, aircraft simulation training and as we can see now, VR is getting more and more popular in gaming filed. Also, there already have many studies discussed about the VR, for example, many studies ([1]Witmer & Singer, 1998; [2]Steuer, 1992; [3] Rafaeli , 1988) discussed the factors which may influence user’s experience in virtual environment and also there already have been lots of literatures ([4] Heeter, 1992; [5] Sanchez-Vives & Slater., 2005;[1] Witmer & Singer, 1998) talked over the indicator which can measure user’s experience, the indicator we call it ‘presence’ and will talk about it later. In addition, there has another literatures proposed another indicator to measure user’s experience, it’s called ‘engagement’. In this study we will talk about them and use them to measure how much subjects involve in the virtual environment. But as we can see now, there are not so much application on educational field in VR. Otherwise, most of the literatures talked about what kind of usage in technology can have better presence to user or what kind of presence user would have when they experienced VR, also as we mentioned above, the application of VR in surgery simulation or aircraft stimulation training etc. With the chance if cooperating with the National Palace Museum, it’s a good opportunity to do a research on it, National Palace Museum provide virtual reality equipment and the educational content to us, we dedicated to find out the different individual’s impact on the usage of VR and also explore what kind of channels can have better presence or engagement to users and find the suitable content usage in different channel. After all, our aim is to let the application of VR can have more possibility in different field such as education and make people have more interests in learning the history of antiquities by using the virtual reality equipment which is supplied by National Palace Museum

Road crossing behaviors of pedestrians in two different virtual reality environments

About 20% of all people killed on roads are pedestrians. Virtual Reality (VR) simulators can be used to train street crossing and improve pedestrian safety, but the use of this technology has some limitations that need to be addressed. Common issues are related to the ecological validity of the experience because of poor immersion, movement limitations, and lack of visual and audio effects. In addition, these simulators are often very expensive. To address this, we developed a pedestrian street-crossing simulation that can be delivered through two mediums, a low-cost CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) or a Head-Mounted Display (HMD). These two environments provide a high immersive experience, simple architecture, and a lower cost of deployment. Following an independent samples design, 20 participants were randomly allocated to the CAVE or HMD group and performed a street-crossing task. We measured the percentage of collisions with vehicles and presence through the Witmer and Singer Presence Questionnaire. Our results show that the percentage of collisions was significantly higher in the HMD group. Presence scores were high for both groups, but not significantly different. These results can be used to inform the design of VR simulators for safe street-crossing.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effectiveness of Construction Safety Hazards Identification in Virtual Reality Learning Environment

Occupational Safety and Health Act (1994) and efforts taken to ensure the safety of workers in the construction industry. Despite these, accident rates are still alarming. One of the reasons is due to the weak pedagogy, lack of technology integration, and hazardous learning environment that lead towards low learning performance and practicing safety procedures. This study aims to discover the effectiveness of virtual reality simulation learning environment. Results show that there is a significant difference in trainee's achievements in a traditional construction site visit and virtual construction environment. To conclude, virtual reality learning environment offers effective learning platforms for millennials.Keywords: safety hazards; occupational safety and health; virtual reality;eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA CE-Bs by E-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i12.180

Efficacy of augmented reality-based virtual hiking in cardiorespiratory endurance: a pilot study

Exergames can be used to overcome a sedentary lifestyle. Virtual Reality (VR) has made exergames successful, and they can be used to increase heart rate, but some limitations are found, such as the adaptation of the heart rate in exergames to the player's fitness profile. VR technology has been used to simulate virtual cycling and walking experiences. We designed and developed an exergame' Virtual Levadas' in a cave-based VR environment to simulate the Levadas hiking tracks. They are the main attraction for tourists in Madeira Island, Portugal. This study's main objective was to assess player exertion, usability, participation, and realism of the simulation of the Levadas tracks. We performed this study with 13 participants who played Virtual Levadas for 6 minutes and found a significant increase in player's average physical activity and heart rate. Overall, our results demonstrate that Virtual Levada's exergame provides a higher exertion level, immersion, and realism of the virtual environment than the literature.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Penggunaan Virtual Reality Exposure terhadap Simtom Fobia Sosial pada Mahasiswa Saat Melakukan Public Speaking

Fobia sosial atau kecemasan sosial merupakan rasa takut yang berlebihan pada situasi sosial. Rasa takut ini terkadang menimbulkan permasalahan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui perubahan tingkat fobia sosial dan respons fisiologis yang terjadi pada mahasiswa saat diberikan paparan/eksposur berupa social exposure lingkungan virtual. Hipotesis pada penelitian ini adalah terdapat pengaruh signifikan virtual reality exposure terhadap perubahan respons fisiologis dan tingkat fobia sosial pada mahasiswa pada kelompok yang diberi perlakuan. Metode penelitian menggunakan desain eksperimen pretest-posttest control design dengan rancangan penelitian berupa mixed design. Terdapat 41 partisipan yang memenuhi kriteria penelitian. Partisipan dibagi ke dalam kelompok eksperimen (n= 21) dan kelompok kontrol (n= 20). Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan terdiri dari skala Social Anxiety Disorder Dimensional (SAD-D) dan Self-Statements During Public Speaking (SSPS) serta Biofeedback Procomp5 Infiniti. Analisis data menggunakan teknik mixed ANOVA. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terjadi peningkatan simtom fobia sosial pada kelompok eksperimen secara tidak signifikan dan terjadi penurunan secara signifikan pada kelompok kontrol (p < 0,05). Implikasi dari penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memberikan informasi kepada penelitian selanjutnya dalam memberikan perlakuan pada partisipan yang mengalami kecemasan sosial dengan metode eksposur lingkungan virtual