Virtual Reality in education and for employability

Virtual reality is becoming pervasive in several domains - in arts and film-making, for environmental causes, in medical education, in disaster management training, in sports broadcasting, in entertainment, and in supporting patients with dementia. An awareness of virtual reality technology and its integration in curriculum design will provide and enhance employability skills for current and future workplaces. In this webinar, we will describe the evolution of virtual reality technologies and our research in 3D virtual worlds, 3D virtual environments developed in Unity 3D, and mobile virtual reality via 360-degree photospheres (e.g. as in the Google Expeditions app) and 360-degree videos. We will discuss the technological and pedagogical affordances of virtual reality technologies and how they contribute towards learning and teaching. We will discuss the significance of using virtual reality in education, in training and skills development, and for employability

Using Virtual Reality to Train Athletes

Training athletes is an ever-evolving part of sports that, with the growth of the use of technology in sports, has become increasingly complex. Organizations and teams are constantly looking for new ways to be at the forefront of training development. As the development of virtual reality has moved forward, so has the ability to adopt these new technologies to a wide variety of areas. There are multiple systems already in existence that use virtual reality to train athletes. This proposed study aims to shed light on this promising technology to help athletes learn more efficiently and effectively in a safe environment

Virtual Reality for Baseball Batting

Nowadays, researchers explore the applications of Virtual Reality in different aspects of people’s lives. A few studies of Virtual Reality focus on applications in sports training. In this research area, one of the most important benefits is that athletes can focus on the training of one specific skill at one time. This SURF project focuses on the development of the virtual reality environment by designing targeted training for baseball batters, with the goal to achieve sufficient realism as judged by the Purdue baseball coaches. With the Virtual Reality training, baseball batters can practice and perfect a specific skill without a real pitcher or the limitation of the weather. Targeted training includes recognition speed, determination if the ball hits the strike zone, and judgement of baseball path realized by Unity as game engine. The project involves simulating different baseball paths, adding difficulties by changing the ball’s color to fulfill the training need. Future work will collect data on Purdue baseball players and provide recommendations based on the comparison of accuracy and recognition time after a period of training. Ultimately, we will collect data on how Virtual Reality training impacts baseball team’s performance during the subsequent game season

The Effects of Virtual Reality on Motor Performance in the First Person Point of View

Previous research has shown that visualization is an effective method used to improve motor performance (Ridderinkhof, 2015) and that similar neural pathways are activated while visualizing and performing a task (Decety, 1989). More recent research has begun to look at whether virtual reality similarly improves motor performance (Bideau, 2004). The advantages of virtual reality include the ability to practice without physical exertion (Ridderinkhof, 2015) and a better cognitive understanding of complex tactics (Science-based cognitive assessment & training, 2019). In the current study, the effects of virtual reality and visualization on motor performance in sports is tested based on the success rate of being able to make free-throws between the Control, Visualization or Virtual Reality groups. I hypothesized that the Virtual Reality group will make more shots than the Visualization or the Control groups because of its more interactive ability. I also hypothesized that participants\u27 self-efficacy will increase after using virtual reality. The results of my research showed that there was no significant difference in shooting ability between groups. On the other hand, the participants in the Virtual Reality group found virtual reality to be significantly more useful than the Control group found counting backwards to be. Virtual reality was not significantly on any of the other self-efficacy questions. Future research should continue to examine the possible effects that virtual reality can have on motor performance as well as self-efficacy improvement

Virtuality Engineering in Esports

Traditional sports and esports benefit from the development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including gaming, 4D image/video processing, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), big data, high-performance computing (HPC), and cloud computing. On the fuzzy border between the areas of physical and modified reality, both types of sports can coexist.  The hardware layer of esports includes PC, consoles, smartphones, and peripherals used to interface with computers, including sensors and feedback devices. The IT layer of esports includes algorithms required in the development of games, online platforms, and virtual reality. The esports community includes amateur and professional players, spectators, esports organizers, sponsors, and other stakeholders. Esports and gaming research spans throughout law (intellectual rights, insurance, safety, and age restrictions), administration (teams, clubs, organizations, league regulations, and tournaments) biology (medicine, psychology, addiction, training and education) Olympic and non-Olympic disciplines, ethical issues, game producers, finance, gambling, data acquisition and analysis. Our article aims to presents selected research issues of esports in the ICT virtualization layer

Haptic Foot Feedback for Kicking Training in Virtual Reality

As means to further supplement athletic performances increases, virtual reality is becoming helpful to sports in terms of cognitive training such as reaction, mentality, and game strategies. With the aid of haptic feedback, interaction with virtual objects increases by another dimension, in addition to the presence of visual and auditory feedback. This research presents an integrated system of a virtual reality environment, motion tracking system, and a haptic unit designed for the dorsal foot. The prototype simulates a scenario of virtual kicking and returns haptic response upon collision between the user’s foot and virtual object. The overall system was evaluated for its tracking accuracy and stimulation strength of the haptic devices. Our results will address the issues associated to yielding rich haptic sensation for the dorsal foot as well as the errors in tracking foot orientation. The study is currently on-going and preliminary results will be discussed

Comparison of response quality and attack recognition in karate kumite between reality and virtual reality – a pilot study

Virtual reality (VR) is an often-used instrument in sports science research and practical training. However, VR studies with experienced athletes and sports specific tasks are rare. Furthermore, the transfer from interventions in VR into reality is even less investigated. It is possible to analyze benefits of VR using in-situ studies comparing human behavior in VR with reality. If no differences occur in the human behavior, then VR would be appropriate for interventions to improve athletes’ performance. Therefore, we let seven karate athletes respond each to ten attacks of a real attacker (reality) and a virtual attacker (VR using a Head Mounted Display) and compared the parameters “response quality” and “attack recognition” under both conditions. As attacks we chose Gyaku-Zuki (reverse punch, GZ) and Kizami-Zuki (attack with the front arm, KZ). ANOVAs and sign tests showed isolated cases of significant differences between both conditions: response quality in KZ, and attack recognition for 150ms in GZ, all p0.05). The remaining comparisons showed no significant differences (p>0.05). We conclude that further research is needed but the results of the present pilot study are promising to assume that VR is suitable for applications because similar performance outcome in reality and VR were obtained

Attention computing for enhanced visuomotor skill performance: Testing the effectiveness of gaze-adaptive cues in virtual reality golf putting

This is the final version. Available on open access from Springer via the DOI in this recordAvailability of data, material and code: All relevant data and code is available online from: https://osf.io/jdums/This work explored how immersive technologies like virtual reality can be exploited for improved motor learning. While virtual reality is becoming a practical replacement for training that is otherwise expensive, dangerous, or inconvenient to deliver, virtual simulations can also enhance the learning process. Based on the concept of ‘attention computing’, we developed and tested a novel ‘gaze-adaptive’ training method within a virtual putting environment augmented with eye and motion tracking. To our knowledge, this work is the first application of attention computing and adaptive virtual reality to sports skill training. Novice golfers were randomly assigned to either standard putting practice in virtual reality (control) or gaze-adaptive training conditions. For gaze-adaptive training, the golf ball was sensitive to the participant’s gaze and illuminated when fixated upon, to prompt longer and more stable pre-shot fixations. We recorded the effect of these training conditions on task performance, gaze control, and putting kinematics. Gaze-adaptive training was successful in generating more expert-like gaze control and putting kinematics, although this did not transfer to improved performance outcomes within the abbreviated training paradigm. These findings suggest that gaze-adaptive environments can enhance visuomotor learning and may be a promising method for augmenting virtual training environments.Leverhulme Trus

A Novel Virtual Reality Curriculum Improves Laparoscopic Skill in Novices

A NOVEL VIRTUAL REALITY-BASED CURRICULUM IMPROVES LAPAROSCOPIC SKILL IN NOVICES. Michael Joel Martinez, Andrew John Duffy. Department of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. Surgical skills training, facing work hours restrictions and increasing numbers of procedural skills to master, requires an innovative approach to ensure success. We developed a novel basic laparoscopic skill, virtual reality-based simulator curriculum on the LapSim (Surgical Science, Goteborg, Sweden), with a training module and a skills exam enabling trainees to develop a minimum skill level. We hypothesize that unskilled trainees laparoscopic skills performance will improve when compared to controls. Also, those who are able to successfully complete our training curriculum and pass the exam will demonstrate higher skills levels compared to non-passers during the training period. We anticipate that skills will begin to degrade after a period 30 days without repetitive training. We expect that individual trainee performance will correlate with past experience with video games, sports, or musical instruments. Thirty-two novice, pre-clinical medical students were randomized to various training schedules. All students trained on the curriculum with the goal of completing the practice drills and passing the skills exam. Students laparoscopic skills were assessed at baseline and at monthly intervals using two tasks from the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) curriculum that are known to correlate with operative laparoscopic skill. Additional FLS testing was performed after a one month layoff to evaluate short-term skill degradation. Objective skill FLS scores were compared between training and non-training groups, and between passing and non-passing groups at the completion of the study. All participants prior experiences with video games, sports and musical instruments were correlated with study performance. Training improved FLS performance for all participants. There was significantly greater skill development in passers versus non-passer (p\u3c0.05). Skills did not degrade after a 30 day layoff but continued to improve for all participants even reaching a statistically significant improvement on one task. Performance was not correlated with past video game, sports, or musical instrument experience. Trainees who successfully completed the our curriculum demonstrated significantly higher laparoscopic skills. These skills should translate to improved operative performance. Skills were retained after the last training session and demonstrated improvement at 30 days. We demonstrated no performance correlation with prior video game, sports or musical experience

THE VALIDITY OF USING VIRTUAL REALITY HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAY FOR AGILITY TRAINING

Virtual reality (VR) provides a fully controlled environment with the potential of making sports training easier. However, to date very few studies concerned creating a locomotion training environment enabling multi-directional movements for mimicking realistic locomotion. This study aims to investigate the validity of using low-cost VR head-mounted display (HMD) for agility training in a virtual environment (VE) for ‘real-walking’ locomotion. Three male college participants (age: 24.00±1.00years, height: 1.68±0.09m, weight: 65.63±4.65kg) participated in this study. They were asked to complete two agility ladder training tasks: the forward and backward icky shuffle, in the real environment (RE) and VE. The correlations of the segment trajectories in the RE and VE were calculated, respectively. Moreover, the correlations of the segment trajectories between the two environments were also calculated. The z-test results show that no significant difference has been obtained in the consistency of the movements between the two environments. Also, high correlations in the segment trajectories were obtained between the virtual and real training environment. The results indicate that it is feasible to use VR HMD for agility training