Noise Pollution? What\u27s the solution?: Understanding Traffic Noise Pollution in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Noise pollution can be damaging to a community by impacting its atmosphere as well as the health of its residents, local quality of life, and local economy. Our study sought to gain insight into the level of noise pollution in Gettysburg, both in-town and on the Gettysburg College campus, and how noise pollution may be affecting the local residents and students. We selected 9 sampling sites, 6 in-town and 3 on the college campus, and measured the noise pollution in dBA with portable sound meters three days a week and three times a day over a three week period. Our data showed no major trends in terms of time of day or day of the week, but there were clear differences in noise pollution levels between the different sites in that town sites were generally louder than on campus sites. Noise pollution in town was often louder than 70 dBA, the noise threshold that indicates possible hearing damage overtime set by the World Health Organization. Gettysburg has recently enacted a noise ordinance; our study suggests the Borough possibly could do more to mitigate traffic noise by repairing roads and manipulating road design

UX evaluation of VR locomotion & virtual object interaction mechanics

Virtual Reality (VR) Interactions like in Ready Player One? Locomotion (LOC) and Virtual Object Interaction (VOI) are two key areas of concern, when designing and developing VR games and other VR applications. This paper describes a study of three interaction modes and their underlying VOI and LOC mechanics, using a range of consumer-oriented VR input setups, spanning from gamepad, over Spatially Tracked Hand Controllers, to Controllerless Hand Tracking and Omnidirectional Treadmill. All corresponding mechanics were implemented in the specifically developed, optimized and polished “real-world” game Gooze, to test them in a real-world scenario with corresponding challenges in gaming and human computer interaction. A within-subjects experiment with 89 participants using qualitative and quantitative analysis methods was conducted. The interaction modes and their mechanics were evaluated based on the four User Experience aspects: Player Enjoyment, Support of Gameplay, Simulator Sickness and Presence, with the latter being subdivided into the four sub-parameters: General Presence, Spatial Presence, Involvement and Experienced Realism, according to the igroup Presence Questionnaire. The paper concludes with summarizing the individual advantages and disadvantages of the assessed interaction modes

“VRification”: applying virtual reality to digital games

In the following, we discuss the process of applying virtual reality to digital games. We named this process “VRification” and will elaborate on some of its opportunities and issues. Based on a literature survey and professional practice, this work covers several examples of VR games, which were intended as such from the beginning (Job Simulator and Lucky’s Tale) and others, which were ported to VR after their initial release (DOOM VR and LizzE). We conclude that, for VR games, it is essential to be optimized for the full potential of targeted interface technologies. Furthermore, porting former-non-VR games to VR can create successful user experiences, when aiming for the same high standard of optimization, especially regarding simulator sickness

Local multiplayer immersion affected by 3D stereoscopy

In this paper, we describe an experimental study, which evaluates how 3D stereoscopy affects player immersion in a possibly very distracting local multiplayer game. The game “Nicely Dicely” was specifically developed for this purpose, with 3D stereoscopy in mind, right from the beginning. Groups of participants were competitively playing the game in non-3D monoscopic and 3D stereoscopic presentations via a 3D compatible projector and corresponding active shutter glasses. In the following, we elaborate on the game and our quantitative and qualitative hybrid experiment design and methodology. An analysis of the resulting data will show that, indeed 3D stereoscopy significantly increases spatial presence, involvement and player immersion, even in a local multiplayer situation. Furthermore, some guiding insights relating the game’s design will be illustrated

An experiment design: investigating VR locomotion & virtual object interaction mechanics

In this paper, we describe an experiment outline on investigating design and user experience related aspects of several virtual reality locomotion and virtual object interaction mechanics. These mechanics will be based on consumer hardware like a common game controllers, an infrared hand and finger tracking device, VR hand controllers and an omnidirectional treadmill. Corresponding related work will contextualize and motivate this research. The projected experimental study will be based on user test sessions with a specifically developed 1st person VR puzzle horror game, called Gooze. A hybrid approach of self-assessment, in-game parameter tracking and session observations will be proposed for the investigation. Statistical analysis methods will be suggested to evaluate results. Furthermore, this paper will give an overview of the game and elaborate on design, gameplay and user experience related insights of already conducted informal pre-studies with it

Integration of geographic information system and RADARSAT synthetic aperture radar data using a self-organizing map network as compensation for realtime ground data in automatic image classification

The paper presents results of using advanced techniques such as Self-Organizing feature Map (SOM) to incorporate a GIS data layer to compensate for the limited amount of real-time ground-truth data available for land-use and land-cover mapping in wet-season conditions in Bangladesh based on multi-temporal RADARSAT-1 SAR images. The experimental results were compared with those of traditional statistical classifiers such as Maximum Likelihood, Mahalanobis Distance, and Minimum Distance, which are not suitable for incorporating low-level GIS data in the image classification process. The performances of the classifiers were evaluated in terms of the classification accuracy with respect to the collected real-time ground truth data. The SOM neural network provided the highest overall accuracy when a GIS layer of land type classification with respect to the depth and duration of regular flooding was used in the network. Using this method, the overall accuracy was around 15% higher than the previously mentioned traditional classifiers at 79.6% where the training data covered only 0.53% of the total image. It also achieved higher accuracies for more classes in comparison to the other classifiers

Virtual Reality 3rd person camera behavior modes

We describe and evaluate five different level design independent modes of handling camera behavior in the 3rd person game LizzE – And the Light of Dreams in Virtual Reality. The behavior of the different modes will each be illustrated in detail. To evaluate the modes A: Fast circling, B: Lazy Circling, C: No Circling, D: Blink circling and E: Buffered pulling, an experimental study with 33 subjects was conducted. An analysis of the resulting data will show why Buffered pulling seems to be the most promising of the examined modes. We elaborate on the quantitative and qualitative hybrid experiment design and methodology. Eventually the advantages and disadvantages of the five tested modes are discussed in terms of supporting the gameplay, player enjoyment, in game performance and the tendency to induce nausea

Defining coaching psychology: debating coaching and coaching psychology definitions

SGCP has been reviewing its standards. As part of this journey, we have also taken the opportunity to revisit the nature of coaching psychology. What is ‘coaching’? How does it differ from ‘coaching psychology’? We explore these in a longer paper within ICPR. In this paper we aim to provide a short review of definitions and offer thoughts on a new definition for coaching psychology

Forgiveness and interpersonal skills in same-sexed friendships

Although forgiveness is a largely interpersonal process, little research has examined the relationship between forgiveness and the interpersonal skills that may be important in forgiving another for an offence. The current study addressed this issue by investigating the relationship between forgiveness and interpersonal skills in same-sexed friendships among a community sample of 210 people (mean age 38.32 years). Each participant completed the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (Thompson et al., 2005), which assesses forgiveness of self, others, and situations; and the same-sex friend version of the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire (Buhrmester, Furman, Wittenberg, & Reis, 1988) which assesses skills in initiation, negative assertion, self-disclosure, emotional support, and conflict management. Positive correlations were found between all five interpersonal skills and the three types of forgiveness, with only the relationship between forgiveness of others and negative assertion failing to reach significance. Separate hierarchical regressions were conducted to predict each type of forgiveness, with age and gender entered at Step 1 and the interpersonal skills variables entered at Step 2. Age, initiation skills, and conflict management skills each contributed uniquely to the prediction of all three types of forgiveness. Discussion centres around the relationship between forgiveness and interpersonal skills