Affective computing in virtual reality: emotion recognition from brain and heartbeat dynamics using wearable sensors

[EN] Affective Computing has emerged as an important field of study that aims to develop systems that can automatically recognize emotions. Up to the present, elicitation has been carried out with nonimmersive stimuli. This study, on the other hand, aims to develop an emotion recognition system for affective states evoked through Immersive Virtual Environments. Four alternative virtual rooms were designed to elicit four possible arousal-valence combinations, as described in each quadrant of the Circumplex Model of Affects. An experiment involving the recording of the electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography (ECG) of sixty participants was carried out. A set of features was extracted from these signals using various state-of-the-art metrics that quantify brain and cardiovascular linear and nonlinear dynamics, which were input into a Support Vector Machine classifier to predict the subject's arousal and valence perception. The model's accuracy was 75.00% along the arousal dimension and 71.21% along the valence dimension. Our findings validate the use of Immersive Virtual Environments to elicit and automatically recognize different emotional states from neural and cardiac dynamics; this development could have novel applications in fields as diverse as Architecture, Health, Education and Videogames.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. Spain (Project TIN2013-45736-R).Marín-Morales, J.; Higuera-Trujillo, JL.; Greco, A.; Guixeres Provinciale, J.; Llinares Millán, MDC.; Scilingo, EP.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.... (2018). Affective computing in virtual reality: emotion recognition from brain and heartbeat dynamics using wearable sensors. Scientific Reports. 8:1-15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32063-4S1158Picard, R. W. Affective computing. (MIT press, 1997).Picard, R. W. Affective Computing: Challenges. Int. J. Hum. Comput. 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Developing a replication of a wayfinding study: From a large-scale real building to a virtual reality simulation

Developing virtual reality (VR) simulations for replication of real-world studies in spatial cognition research is a tedious process, as numerous processes must be considered to achieve correspondence. In this chapter, we describe the develop-ment of a virtual model for a replication of a real-world study in the Seattle Cen-tral Library. The aim is to pragmatically report challenges and solutions in trans-lating real-world conditions of complex and large-scale buildings into virtual real-ity simulations. For this aim, the chapter focuses on three steps for development: modelling the virtual environment, optimizing the performance, and designing the human-environment interaction.ISSN:0302-9743ISSN:1611-334

Virtual Construction: Interactive Tools for Collaboration in Virtual Reality

Virtual technologies and game engines provide new possibilities for collaborative virtual design within digital building models. The current paper describes an approach, in which computer-aided design (CAD) models of buildings are transferred into a game engine based environment, where they can be reviewed and further designed collaboratively. Following a user-centered design (UCD) process based on interviews and iterative interactions with designers and architects, the prototype of Virtual Construction─a game engine based platform for collaborative virtual design meetings─was designed and implemented using Unreal Engine 4. The interactive tools developed can be used both in full immersive virtual reality and using traditional devices (e.g. laptop or desktop computers). Based on identified user needs, interaction techniques were implemented for moving, rotating, and aligning objects, adding and resizing shapes and objects, as well as moving and measuring distances in the three-dimensional (3D) building model. In addition, the communication techniques implemented based on user needs included synchronous features such as voice communication, text chat, pointing, and drawing, and asynchronous features such as leaving messages and feedback augmented with screenshots to exact virtual locations. Other implemented scenarios included different lighting scenarios, an evacuation scenario and crowdsourced voting between different designs.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Comparing human wayfinding behavior between a real, existing building, a virtual replica, and two architectural redesigns

While virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being used for behavioral studies and pre-occupancy evaluations, the correspondence of wayfinding behavior between real and virtual environments is yet understudied. In this chapter, we report a post- and pre-occupancy evaluation that compares wayfinding behavior in a real, existing building to three virtually simulated buildings: one replication of the real building and two architectural design variations of the same building. We focus on comparing the conditions with respect to their effect on a) the distance above a shortest, optimal path, and key wayfinding decisions, as well as b) absolute angular pointing errors. Preliminary results indicate that the virtual replica represented the real building, as the result patterns were generally comparable. Yet, the redesigns did not evoke a better wayfinding performance.ISSN:0302-9743ISSN:1611-334