Examining the Effects of Interactive Dynamic Multimedia and Direct Touch Input on Performance of a Procedural Motor Task

Ownership of mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, has quickly risen in the last decade. Unsurprisingly, they are now being integrated into the training and classroom setting. Specifically, the U.S. Army has mapped out a plan in the Army Learning Model of 2015 to utilize mobile devices for training purposes. However, before these tools can be used effectively, it is important to identify how the tablets\u27 unique properties can be leveraged. For this dissertation, the touch interface and the interactivity that tablets afford were investigated using a procedural-motor task. The procedural motor task was the disassembly procedures of a M4 carbine. This research was motivated by cognitive psychology theories, including Cognitive Load Theory and Embodied Cognition. In two experiments, novices learned rifle disassembly procedures in a narrated multimedia presentation presented on a tablet and then were tested on what they learned during the multimedia training involving a virtual rifle by performing a rifle disassembly on a physical rifle, reassembling the rifle, and taking a written recall test about the disassembly procedures. Spatial ability was also considered as a subject variable. Experiment 1 examined two research questions. The primary research question was whether including multiple forms of interactivity in a multimedia presentation resulted in higher learning outcomes. The secondary research question in Experiment 1 was whether dynamic multimedia fostered better learning outcomes than equivalent static multimedia. To examine the effects of dynamism and interactivity on learning, four multimedia conditions of varying levels of interactivity and dynamism were used. One condition was a 2D phase diagram depicting the before and after of the step with no animation or interactivity. Another condition utilized a non-interactive animation in which participants passively watched an animated presentation of the disassembly procedures. A third condition was the interactive animation in which participants could control the pace of the presentation by tapping a button. The last condition was a rifle disassembly simulation in which participants interacted with a virtual rifle to learn the disassembly procedures. A comparison of the conditions by spatial ability yielded the following results. Interactivity, overall, improved outcomes on the performance measures. However, high spatials outperformed low spatials in the simulation condition and the 2D phase diagram condition. High spatials seemed to be able to compensate for low interactivity and dynamism in the 2D phase diagram condition while enhancing their performance in the rifle disassembly simulation condition. In Experiment 2, the touchscreen interface was examined by investigating how gestures and input modality affected learning the disassembly procedures. Experiment 2 had two primary research questions. The first was whether gestures facilitate learning a procedural-motor task through embodied learning. The second was whether direct touch input using resulted in higher learning outcomes than indirect mouse input. To examine the research questions, three different variations of the rifle disassembly simulation were used. One was identical to that of Experiment 1. Another incorporated gestures to initiate the animation whereby participants traced a gesture arrow representing the motion of the component to learn the procedures. The third condition utilized the same interface as the initial rifle disassembly simulation but included dummy gesture arrows that displayed only visual information but did not respond to gesture. This condition was included to see the effects (if any) of the gesture arrows in isolation of the gesture component. Furthermore, direct touch input was compared to indirect mouse input. Once again, spatial ability also was considered. Results from Experiment 2 were inconclusive as no significant effects were found. This may have been due to a ceiling effect of performance. However, spatial ability was a significant predictor of performance across all conditions. Overall, the results of the two experiments support the use of multimedia on a tablet to train a procedural-motor task. In line with vision of ALM 2015, the research support incorporating tablets into U.S. Army training curriculum

Toward Content-Driven Intelligent Authoring of Mulsemedia Applications

Improvement of Higher Education Personnel—Brazil; 10.13039/501100004586-Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; 10.13039/501100003593-Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; CAPES PRINT

The Social Work Docuverse

The impact of electronic technology on social work has not been fundamental or transformative in any way comparable to the impact upon a variety of other professions and disciplines. A major potential impact of electronic systems for communications-based knowledge systems like social work lies in the area of textual processing systems which are only beginning to come to the fore. This article concentrates on one such set of technology -- hypermedia -- which already makes possible the construction and delivery of a social work docuverse which contains an electronic knowledge base of the field. Actual realization of such a web and exploration of the vast networks of linkages it implies will be an enormous task which should be the first major scholarly enterprise facing social welfare scholars in the new millennium. Several major problems must be overcome in creating such a vast undertaking include a number of critical organizational, legal, educational and political issues. The very nature of the emerging technology together with the inherited traditions of professional education make such a task inherently a matter of the common good of the profession

Computer-Aided Teaching Using Animations for Engineering Curricula: A Case Study for Automotive Engineering Modules

© 2021 Crown Copyright. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2021.3100471.One-dimensional (1-D) demonstrations, e.g. the black-box systems, have become popular in teaching materials for engineering modules due to the high complexity of the system’s multi-dimensional (e.g. 2-D and 3-D) identities. The need for multi-dimensional explanations on how multi-physics equations and systems work is vital for engineering students, whose learning experience must gain a cognitive process understanding for utilizing such multi-physics-focused equations into a pragmatic dimension. The lack of knowledge and expertise in creating animations for visualizing sequent processes and operations in academia can result in an ineffective learning experience for engineering students. This study explores the benefits of animation which can eventually improve the teaching and student learning experiences. In this paper, the use of computer-aided animation tools is evaluated based on their capabilities. Based on their strengths and weaknesses, the study offered some insights for selecting the investigated tools. To verify the effectiveness of animations in teaching and learning, a survey was conducted for undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts and automotive engineering academics. Based on the survey’s data, some analytics and discussion have offered more quantitative results. The historic data (2012-2020) analysis have validated the animations efficacy as achievements of the study, where the average mark of both modules has significantly improved, with the reduced rate of failure.Peer reviewe

Semi-Automatic mulsemedia authoring analysis from the user's perspective

Mulsemedia (Multiple Sensorial Media) authoring is a complex task that requires the author to scan the media content to identify the moments to activate sensory effects. A novel proposal is to integrate content recognition algorithms into authoring tools to alleviate the authoring effort. Such algorithms could potentially replace the work of the human author when analyzing audiovisual content, by performing automatic extraction of sensory effects. Besides that, the semi-Automatic method proposes to maintain the author subjectivity, allowing the author to define which sensory effects should be automatically extracted. This paper presents an evaluation of the proposed semi-Automatic authoring considering the point of view of users. Experiments were done with the STEVE 2.0 mulsemedia authoring tool. Our work uses the GQM (Goal Question Metric) methodology, a questionnaire for collecting users' feedback, and analyzes the results. We conclude that users believe that the semi-Automatic authoring is a positive addition to the authoring method.CAPES, CAPES Print, CNPQ, INCT-MACC and FAPERJ

Grand Challenges in Immersive Analytics

The definitive version will be published in CHI 2021, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, JapanInternational audienceImmersive Analytics is a quickly evolving field that unites several areas such as visualisation, immersive environments, and humancomputer interaction to support human data analysis with emerging technologies. This research has thrived over the past years with multiple workshops, seminars, and a growing body of publications, spanning several conferences. Given the rapid advancement of interaction technologies and novel application domains, this paper aims toward a broader research agenda to enable widespread adoption. We present 17 key research challenges developed over multiple sessions by a diverse group of 24 international experts, initiated from a virtual scientific workshop at ACM CHI 2020. These challenges aim to coordinate future work by providing a systematic roadmap of current directions and impending hurdles to facilitate productive and effective applications for Immersive Analytics

Mobile Commerce App Adoption: Consumer Behavior Differences between Europe and Asia

Title: ‘Mobile Commerce App Adoption: Consumer Behavior Differences between Europe and Asia’ Research Question: 1. What are the differences between European and Asian consumer behavior of adopting m-commerce apps? 2. Why is there a different level of m-commerce app adoption between European and Asian consumers? Research Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate the reasons why consumer adoption behavior of m-commerce apps in the European market differs from those in the Asian market. Our findings will contribute to helping to raise their level of m-commerce app adoption in the European market. Method: This research is a qualitative study and utilizes survey as a research design. Interviews designed according to a theoretical framework were used to collect data for analysis. The interviews were conducted in four countries: UK, Sweden, China and South Korea. Conclusion: Our results showed that European consumers lacked knowledge and were unable to perceive the full conveniences of using apps, compared to Asian respondents. What’s more European consumers placed a lot of importance on risks and anxieties when adopting apps. Findings showed that these differences could be explained through Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

The quality of experience of next generation audio :exploring system, context and human influence factors

PhD ThesisThe next generation of audio reproduction technology has the potential to deliver immersive and personalised experiences to the user; multichannel with-height loudspeaker arrays and binaural techniques offer 3D audio experiences, whereas objectbased techniques offer possibilities of adapting content to suit the system, context and user. A fundamental process in the advancement of such technology is perceptual evaluation. It is crucial to understand how listeners perceive new technology in order to drive future developments. This thesis explores the experience provided by next generation audio technology by taking a quality of experience (QoE) approach to evaluation. System, context and human factors all influence QoE and in this thesis three case studies are presented to explore the role of these categories of influence factors (IFs) in the context of next generation audio evaluation. Furthermore, these case studies explore suitable methods and approaches for the evaluation of the QoE of next generation audio with respect to its various IFs. Specific contributions delivered from these individual studies include a subjective comparison between soundbar and discrete surround sound technology, the application of the Open Profiling of Quality method to the field of audio evaluation, an understanding of both how and why environmental noise influences preferred audio object balance, an understanding of how the influence of technical audio quality on overall listening experience is related to a range of psychographic variables and an assessment of the impact of binaural processing on overall listening experience. When considering these studies as a whole, the research presented here contributes the thesis that to effectively evaluate the perceived quality of next generation audio, a QoE mindset should be taken that considers system, context and human IFs.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the British Broadcasting Corporation Research & Development department (BBC R&D