Plausibility Illusion in Virtual Environments

Historically, research into subjective user experience in virtual environments has focused on presence, the feeling of "being there" in the virtual environment. Recently, Professor Mel Slater proposed that in addition to this feeling of being in the virtual space, researchers also need to consider the subjective feeling that the events depicted in the virtual environment appear real. He coined the terms Place Illusion (PI) and Plausibility Illusion (Psi), respectively, to refer to these subjective feelings. There exists a substantial amount of previous research applicable to PI, but very little regarding Psi. This dissertation fleshes out the concept of Plausibility Illusion by introducing new terminology, and reports on several experiments investigating the factors and effects of Psi. I demonstrate that Psi can be detected using existing presence measures, including questionnaires and physiological metrics. Of particular interest in these results is that factors contributing to Plausibility Illusion affected heart rate, with inconsistent behavior of the virtual environment leading to increased heart rate. I also demonstrate that study participants' individual differences affected how they interacted with a virtual environment, leading to different levels of Plausibility Illusion and, therefore, presence. I further demonstrate that, among the factors tested, the virtual body is the most important factor contributing to users' feelings of Plausibility Illusion, and that the coherence of the virtual scenario is the second most important factor. This shows it is feasible to determine a rank ordering of factors that affect users' sense of Plausibility Illusion in virtual environments, offering guidance to creators and developers.Doctor of Philosoph

Enabling Distributed Collaboration among Heterogeneous Devices

ABSTRACT In this paper we describe a new class of collaborative scientific applications that incorporate heterogeneous devices, such as shared supercomputing or visualization resources, personal computers, and mobile devices, present some classes of collaboration tasks that could profitably make use an application infrastructure that connects heterogeneous devices, and identify some particular applications that fall into these classes. We also describe in greater detail one potential application, natural science field research that employs sensor networks. We also discuss some of the problems that need to be addressed in building an application that allows such heterogeneous device collaboration and some benefits to digital science that could be realized by building collaborative applications in this fashion

Towards an objective measure of presence: examining startle reflexes in a commercial virtual reality game

A large body of literature is concerned with models of presence-the sensory illusion of being part of a virtual scene-but there is still no general agreement on how to measure it objectively and reliably. For the presented study, we applied contemporary theory to measure presence in virtual reality. Thirty-seven participants explored an existing commercial game in order to complete a collection task. Two startle events were naturally embedded in the game progression to evoke physical reactions and head tracking data was collected in response to these events. Subjective presence was recorded using a post-study questionnaire and real-time assessments. Our novel implementation of behavioral measures lead to insights which could inform future presence research: We propose a measure in which startle reflexes are evoked through specific events in the virtual environment, and head tracking data is compared to the range and speed of baseline interactions

Editorial: Presence and beyond: Evaluating user experience in AR/MR/VR

The call for this Research Topic was intentionally broad: We sought papers that identify or propose constructs that can be used to describe AR/MR/VR, and papers that evaluate the utility of those constructs; we sought papers that discussed measures relating to user experience in AR/MR/VR - including, but not limited to, presence. In the end, we were very happy to publish fifteen articles addressing a variety of these questions - but, notably, not all of them. In the remainder of this editorial, we briefly introduce each of the fifteen articles, loosely grouping them into relevant categories. We then discuss each of the three categories in turn, and close with a call to action for our AR/MR/VR research community to more actively engage with human-computer interaction (HCI) and user experience (UX) researchers

Investigating the process of mine rescuers\u27 safety training with immersive virtual reality: A structural equation modelling approach

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Immersive virtual reality (VR) is a powerful tool for vocational training - especially for safety-critical vocations where real-world training is often too complicated, expensive, or risky. Despite its apparent utility in this context, there is not yet a coherent, systematic framework that captures the key features of user learning experiences in immersive virtual reality environments. With the use of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), this article presents a comprehensive framework which brings different dimensions (assessment criteria) together. This framework is informed by the analysis of 45 VR training sessions conducted by Mines Rescue Pty Ltd and total of 284 mines rescue brigades partook in this study and received training on specific mines rescue operation. The result of this study shows that actual and perceived learning was enhanced by trainee engagement with the scenario, their perception of the fidelity of the scenario, their sense of co-presence with other trainees, the perceived usability of the system, an overall positive attitude towards the technology, and the involvement of skilled trainers. These results suggest that: 1) there are multiple paths by which immersive VR training can have a positive impact on learning, and 2) immersive VR training will not replace the requirement for skilled trainers, but rather it can serve as an effective vehicle to convey their expertise

Coherence Changes Gaze Behavior In Virtual Human Interactions

We discuss the design and results of an experiment investigating Plausibility Illusion in virtual human (VH) interactions, in particular, the coherence of conversation with a VH. This experiment was performed in combination with another experiment evaluating two display technologies. As that aspect of the study is not relevant to this poster, it will be mentioned only in the Materials section. Participants who interacted with a low-coherence VH looked around the room markedly more than participants interacting with a high-coherence VH, demonstrating that the level of coherence of VHs can have a detectable effect on user behavior and that head and gaze behavior can be used to evaluate the quality of a VH interaction

Lessons Learned From Immersive and Desktop VR Training of Mines Rescuers

This paper discusses results from two successive rounds of virtual mines rescue training. The first round was conducted in a surround projection environment (360-VR), and the second round was conducted in desktop virtual reality (Desktop-VR). In the 360-VR condition, trainees participated as groups, making collective decisions. In the Desktop-VR condition, trainees could control their avatars individually. Overall, 372 participants took part in this study, including 284 mines rescuers who took part in 360-VR, and 243 in Desktop-VR. (155 rescuers experienced both.) Each rescuer who trained in 360-VR completed a battery of pre- and post-training questionnaires. Those who attended the Desktop-VR session only completed the post-training questionnaire. We performed principal components analysis on the questionnaire data, followed by a multiple regression analysis, the results of which suggest that the chief factor contributing to positive learning outcome was Learning Context, which extracted information about the quality of the learning content, the trainers, and their feedback. Subjective feedback from the Desktop-VR participants indicated that they preferred Desktop-VR to 360-VR for this training activity, which highlights the importance of choosing an appropriate platform for training applications, and links back to the importance of Learning Context. Overall, we conclude the following: 1) it is possible to train effectively using a variety of technologies but technology that is well-suited to the training task is more useful than technology that is “more advanced,” and 2) factors that have always been important in training, such as the quality of human trainers, remain critical for virtual reality training