Virtual Reality Ear Training System: A study on Spatialised Audio in Interval Recognition

Ear training is a vital element in music education, analogous to taking dictation in written language. It provides musicians with a crucial skill used to identify pitches, melodies, chords and rhythms. Traditionally, the training is conducted by a tutor using a musical instrument, typically a piano. However, with new technologies emerging, several computer applications to facilitate this aspect of music education have been developed. Nevertheless, none of them utilised the VR technology, that proved to be successful in various scenarios, including educational systems, simulations, etc. In this work, we designed and developed a virtual reality ear training system for interval recognition and investigated its usability and user experience and the effect of spatialised audio in a 3D virtual environment on user performance. The results showed that the system has been successfully designed and provides users with a great experience when using it

Interaction styles in a multi-modal virtual museum

Virtual Reality is used for creating immersive experiences with rich interactions in many application domains, from video games, simulations, and training, to cultural heritage and educational applications. Taking advantage of this technology, the experience in traditional museums can be enhanced with digital content, the museum or their collections can be replicated for remote visitors, or entirely new virtual museums can be created. In this paper, a demo of a multi-modal virtual museum is presented and interaction discussed from the point of view of a consumer and a virtual museum creator

User eXperience in educational eXtended Reality applications in the Cultural Heritage domain

With the increasing prevalence of educational eXtended Reality (XR) Cultural Heritage (CH) experiences, it becomes increasingly important to understand the user, and learner, experience of such installations and develop bespoke methodologies to capture and evaluate these experiences. Our work aims to expand the existing knowledge of User Experience (UX) in CH incorporating XR, especially for educational aspects inside, by displaying and analysing UX understanding and evaluation methods. Through investigation and research on UX work of applications described from various sources, this paper summarises the current trends, limitations, and challenges of UX evaluation in this field and represents the direction of future work

From pairwise comparisons and rating to a unified quality scale.

The goal of psychometric scaling is the quantification of perceptual experiences, understanding the relationship between an external stimulus, the internal representation and the response. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic framework to fuse the outcome of different psychophysical experimental protocols, namely rating and pairwise comparisons experiments. Such a method can be used for merging existing datasets of subjective nature and for experiments in which both measurements are collected. We analyze and compare the outcomes of both types of experimental protocols in terms of time and accuracy in a set of simulations and experiments with benchmark and real-world image quality assessment datasets, showing the necessity of scaling and the advantages of each protocol and mixing. Although most of our examples focus on image quality assessment, our findings generalize to any other subjective quality-of-experience task.This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n◦ 725253–EyeCode), from EPSRC research grant EP/P007902/1 and from a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research grant under the Grant Number 15/RP/2776. Marıa Pérez-Ortiz did part of this work while at the University of Cambridge and University College London (under MURI grant EPSRC 542892)

Just Noticeable Difference of dead pixels in monochrome computer-generated holograms

Computer-generated holography (CGH) is a method for replicating scenes that incorporates depth, making them potentially much more realistic than traditional displays. Because CGH uses diffractive optics to generate scenes, holograms are also significantly more robust against dead pixels: while a single dead pixel is often noticeable in traditional displays, in holography much higher numbers are needed before a viewer realises the issue. This work is a pilot study to determine the Just Noticeable Difference of the number of dead pixels of a hologram, i.e., the minimum amount that need to be added before a viewer notices the difference. From these JNDs a quality ruler will be generated, which later work will use to compare the impact of other distortions on the perceived quality of a hologram. Results thus far suggest an addition of 4% dead pixels is required to notice a difference, which is significantly greater than the tolerance observed for traditional displays, where the fault class threshold is less than 0.05%

Towards a Collaborative Authoring Tool for Cultural Heritage Applications: Modelling the Development Process Between Curators and Developers

Both museums and virtual museums go through a curation process for creating exhibitions, with a variety of methods available. These are often collaborative, requiring both cultural heritage professionals and designers or developers working together. Mixed reality has the potential to enhance this process for the developer and client, in the form of a collaborative mixed reality authoring tool. It is important to understand the process of collaborative development of cultural heritage applications so that the authoring tool could be designed to cater for these needs. In this paper, a user study is presented that analyses the process of delivering three cultural heritage projects by an experienced development company. As a result, a model that captures project stages and collaborative aspects with the clients is created and validated, existing bottlenecks are identified and three authoring tool concepts that could improve the process are generated and discussed. The resulting tool is proposed to aid the collaboration process during the prototype and initial design stages of the development process, which will aid future research

The development of ReGoal, a serious mobile game for young people with conduct problems*

Research suggests that serious games can be used as supplementary training tools for young people with complex mental health needs. This study aimed to co-produce a mobile-accessible serious game, ReGoal, in collaboration with young people (11–16 years) and an interdisciplinary team of academic experts and practitioners. ReGoal is aimed to serve as a supplementary tool for improving emotion regulation, goal-orientation, and executive functioning skills. This study consisted of three interlinked co-production phases. First, 122 participants, of which 34% had moderate to high conduct problems, completed an online survey about the role of gaming in managing their emotions. During the second phase, 16 young people attended three focus groups in which their lived experiences shaped the narrative of ReGoal. In the third phase, an online user survey gathered feedback from 72 young people playing the most recent prototype of ReGoal. The key findings suggest that young people valued playing ReGoal as a supplementary aid to improving their mood, increasing empathy towards peers and family, reducing anxiety, anger, and impulsivity, and understanding other people’s emotions. Future research should test the applicability and feasibility of ReGoal in reducing behavioural problems with clinical and non-clinical samples

A model of perceived dynamic range for HDR images

For High Dynamic Range (HDR) content, the dynamic range of an image is an important characteristic in algorithm design and validation, analysis of aesthetic attributes and content selection. Traditionally, it has been computed as the ratio between the maximum and minimum pixel luminance, a purely objective measure; however, the human visual system's perception of dynamic range is more complex and has been largely neglected in the literature. In this paper, a new methodology for measuring perceived dynamic range (PDR) of chromatic and achromatic HDR images is proposed. PDR can benefit HDR in a number of ways: for evaluating inverse tone mapping operators and HDR compression methods; aesthetically; or as a parameter for content selection in perceptual studies. A subjective study was conducted on a data set of 36 chromatic and achromatic HDR images. Results showed a strong agreement across participants' allocated scores. In addition, a high correlation between ratings of the chromatic and achromatic stimuli was found. Based on the results from a pilot study, five objective measures (pixel-based dynamic range, image key, area of bright regions, contrast and colorfulness) were selected as candidates for a PDR predictor model; two of which have been found to be significant contributors to the model. Our analyses show that this model performs better than individual metrics for both achromatic and chromatic stimuli

High Dynamic Range in Cultural Heritage Applications

High dynamic range (HDR) technology enables the capture, storage, transmission and display of real-world lighting at a high precision as opposed to traditional low dynamic range (LDR) imaging. One of HDR’s main features is its ability to reproduce very bright and very dark areas simultaneously. Dynamic range describes the span between these extrema in the brightness scale. HDR research investigates the generation, capturing, processing, transmission, storage and reproduction of HDR content. Cultural heritage represents our legacy that must be passed on to future generations. As it is increasingly threatened with deterioration, destruction and disappearance, its documentation, conservation and presentation is of high importance. Given the real-world dynamic range and the limitations of conventional capture and display technology, HDR imaging represents an invaluable tool for accurate documentation, virtual reconstruction and visualisation of cultural heritage. HDR is used by academics, museums, and media to visualise the appearance of sites in various periods in time. Physically-based 3D virtual reconstructions are used for studying existing or ruined cultural heritage environments. This in turn enables archaeologists to interpret the past and deduce new historical knowledge. In this chapter we present the HDR pipeline, along with its use for cultural heritage preservation, recreation and presentation