Simulation of human movement and behaviour in crowded spaces using gaming software

This paper discusses the development of human movement and behaviour simulation in crowded spaces as part of the AUNT-SUE (Accessibility and User Needs in Transport for Sustainable Urban Environments) research project. The research starts with applying a video observational method to understand human movement and behaviour in crowded spaces in the real world. Six hours of video were recorded at a multi-mode transportation system and almost 19,000 individual human movements and behaviours were analyzed. Six types of behaviour were derived from the three major movements of free, opposite and same direction. Six factors affecting human movement and behaviour were recognized from the video analysis. The DarkBASIC Professional gaming software was used to simulate the human movement and behaviour in the virtual world. The six factors affecting human movement and behaviour were considered as the parameters for the virtual humans. Case studies considering multi-mode transportation systems, bottleneck and non-bottleneck situations were applied to validate the prototype software system

Flow with the beat! Human-centered design of virtual environments for musical creativity support in VR

As previous studies have shown, the environment of creative people can have a significant impact on their creative process and thus on their creations. However, with the advent of digital tools such as virtual instruments and digital audio workstations, more and more creative work is digital and decoupled from the creator’s environment. Virtual Reality technologies open up new possibilities here, as creative tools can seamlessly merge with any virtual environment the user finds himself in. This paper reports on the human-centered design process of a VR application that aims at supporting the user’s individual needs to support their creativity while composing percussive beats in virtual environments. For this purpose, we derived factors that influence creativity from literature and conducted focus group interviews in order to learn how virtual environments and 3DUI can be designed for creativity support. In a subsequent laboratory study, we let users interact with a virtual step sequencer UI in virtual environments that were either customizable or fixed/unchangeable. By analyzing post-test ratings from music experts, self-report questionnaires, and user behavior data, we examined the effects of such customizable virtual environments on user creativity, user experience, flow, and subjective creativity support scales. While we did not observe a significant impact of this independent variable on user creativity, user experience or flow, we found that users had specific individual needs regarding their virtual surroundings and strongly preferred customizable virtual environments, even though the fixed virtual environment was designed to be creatively stimulating. We also observed consistently high flow and user experience ratings, which promote human-centered design of VR-based creativity support tools in a musical context

I walk, therefore I am: a multidimensional study on the influence of the locomotion method upon presence in virtual reality

[EN] A defining virtual reality (VR) metric is the sense of presence, a complex, multidimensional psychophysical construct that represents how intense is the sensation of actually being there, inside the virtual environment (VE), forgetting how technology mediates the experience. Our paper explores how locomotion influences presence, studying two different ways of artificial movement along the VE: walking-in-place (through head bobbing detection) and indirect walking (through touchpad). To evaluate that influence, a narrative-neutral maze was created, from where 41 participants (N=41) had to escape. Measuring presence is a controversial topic since there is not a single, objective measure but a wide range of metrics depending on the different theoretical basis. For this reason, we have used for the first time, representative metrics from all three traditional dimensions of presence: subjective presence (SP) (self-reported through questionnaires), behavioral presence (BP) (obtained from unconscious reactions while inside the VE), and physiological presence (PP) [usually measured using heart rate or electrodermal activity (EDA)]. SP was measured with the ITC-SOPI questionnaire, BP by collecting the participants' reactions, and PP by using a bracelet that registered EDA. The results show two main findings: (i) There is no correlation between the different presence metrics. This opens the door to a simpler way of measuring presence in an objective, reliable way. (ii) There is no significant difference between the two locomotion techniques for any of the three metrics, which shows that the authenticity of VR does not rely on how you move within the VE.Soler-Domínguez, JL.; Juan-Ripoll, CD.; Contero, M.; Alcañiz Raya, ML. (2020). I walk, therefore I am: a multidimensional study on the influence of the locomotion method upon presence in virtual reality. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering. 7(5):577-590. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcde/qwaa040S57759075Baños, R. M., Botella, C., Garcia-Palacios, A., Villa, H., Perpiña, C., & Alcañiz, M. (2000). Presence and Reality Judgment in Virtual Environments: A Unitary Construct? CyberPsychology & Behavior, 3(3), 327-335. doi:10.1089/10949310050078760Biocca, F. (1992). Will Simulation Sickness Slow Down the Diffusion of Virtual Environment Technology? Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(3), 334-343. doi:10.1162/pres.1992.1.3.334Biocca, F., Harms, C., & Burgoon, J. K. (2003). Toward a More Robust Theory and Measure of Social Presence: Review and Suggested Criteria. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 12(5), 456-480. doi:10.1162/105474603322761270Boletsis, C. (2017). The New Era of Virtual Reality Locomotion: A Systematic Literature Review of Techniques and a Proposed Typology. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 1(4), 24. doi:10.3390/mti1040024Boletsis, C., & Cedergren, J. E. (2019). VR Locomotion in the New Era of Virtual Reality: An Empirical Comparison of Prevalent Techniques. Advances in Human-Computer Interaction, 2019, 1-15. doi:10.1155/2019/7420781Bowman, D. A., Koller, D., & Hodges, L. F. (1998). A methodology for the evaluation of travel techniques for immersive virtual environments. Virtual Reality, 3(2), 120-131. doi:10.1007/bf01417673Bozgeyikli, E., Raij, A., Katkoori, S., & Dubey, R. (2016). Point & Teleport Locomotion Technique for Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. doi:10.1145/2967934.2968105Bozgeyikli, E., Raij, A., Katkoori, S., & Dubey, R. (2019). Locomotion in virtual reality for room scale tracked areas. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 122, 38-49. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.08.002BRESLOW, N. (1970). A generalized Kruskal-Wallis test for comparing K samples subject to unequal patterns of censorship. Biometrika, 57(3), 579-594. doi:10.1093/biomet/57.3.579Chertoff, D. B., Goldiez, B., & LaViola, J. J. (2010). Virtual Experience Test: A virtual environment evaluation questionnaire. 2010 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (VR). doi:10.1109/vr.2010.5444804Cohen, J. (1992). Statistical Power Analysis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1(3), 98-101. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.ep10768783Critchley, H. D. (2002). Review: Electrodermal Responses: What Happens in the Brain. The Neuroscientist, 8(2), 132-142. doi:10.1177/107385840200800209Hale, K. S., & Stanney, K. M. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of Virtual Environments. doi:10.1201/b17360Larsson, P., Västfjäll, D., & Kleiner, M. (2001). The Actor-Observer Effect in Virtual Reality Presentations. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 4(2), 239-246. doi:10.1089/109493101300117929Lee, K. M. (2004). Presence, Explicated. Communication Theory, 14(1), 27-50. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00302.xLessiter, J., Freeman, J., Keogh, E., & Davidoff, J. (2001). A Cross-Media Presence Questionnaire: The ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 10(3), 282-297. doi:10.1162/105474601300343612Lilliefors, H. W. (1967). On the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test for Normality with Mean and Variance Unknown. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 62(318), 399-402. doi:10.1080/01621459.1967.10482916Mantovani, G., & Riva, G. (1999). «Real» Presence: How Different Ontologies Generate Different Criteria for Presence, Telepresence, and Virtual Presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 8(5), 540-550. doi:10.1162/105474699566459Meehan, M., Razzaque, S., Insko, B., Whitton, M., & Brooks, F. P. (2005). Review of Four Studies on the Use of Physiological Reaction as a Measure of Presence in StressfulVirtual Environments. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 30(3), 239-258. doi:10.1007/s10484-005-6381-3Peck, T. C., Fuchs, H., & Whitton, M. C. (2011). An evaluation of navigational ability comparing Redirected Free Exploration with Distractors to Walking-in-Place and joystick locomotio interfaces. 2011 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference. doi:10.1109/vr.2011.5759437Riva, G., Wiederhold, B. K., & Mantovani, F. (2019). Neuroscience of Virtual Reality: From Virtual Exposure to Embodied Medicine. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22(1), 82-96. doi:10.1089/cyber.2017.29099.griSanchez-Vives, M. V., & Slater, M. (2005). From presence to consciousness through virtual reality. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6(4), 332-339. doi:10.1038/nrn1651Sano, A., Picard, R. W., & Stickgold, R. (2014). Quantitative analysis of wrist electrodermal activity during sleep. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 94(3), 382-389. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.09.011Schloerb, D. W. (1995). A Quantitative Measure of Telepresence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 4(1), 64-80. doi:10.1162/pres.1995.4.1.64Schubert, T., Friedmann, F., & Regenbrecht, H. (2001). The Experience of Presence: Factor Analytic Insights. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 10(3), 266-281. doi:10.1162/105474601300343603Schuemie, M. J., van der Straaten, P., Krijn, M., & van der Mast, C. A. P. G. (2001). Research on Presence in Virtual Reality: A Survey. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 4(2), 183-201. doi:10.1089/109493101300117884Sheridan, T. B. (1992). Musings on Telepresence and Virtual Presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(1), 120-126. doi:10.1162/pres.1992.1.1.120Sheridan, T. B. (1996). Further Musings on the Psychophysics of Presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 5(2), 241-246. doi:10.1162/pres.1996.5.2.241Slater, M. (2004). How Colorful Was Your Day? Why Questionnaires Cannot Assess Presence in Virtual Environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 13(4), 484-493. doi:10.1162/1054746041944849Slater, M., & Steed, A. (2000). A Virtual Presence Counter. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 9(5), 413-434. doi:10.1162/105474600566925Slater, M., & Usoh, M. (1993). Representations Systems, Perceptual Position, and Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2(3), 221-233. doi:10.1162/pres.1993.2.3.221SLATER, M., USOH, M., & STEED, A. (1994). STEPS AND LADDERS IN VIRTUAL REALITY. Virtual Reality Software and Technology. doi:10.1142/9789814350938_0005Slater, M., Steed, A., & Usoh, M. (1995). The Virtual Treadmill: A Naturalistic Metaphor for Navigation in Immersive Virtual Environments. Virtual Environments ’95, 135-148. doi:10.1007/978-3-7091-9433-1_12Slater, M., Usoh, M., & Steed, A. (1995). Taking steps. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2(3), 201-219. doi:10.1145/210079.210084Slater, M., McCarthy, J., & Maringelli, F. (1998). The Influence of Body Movement on Subjective Presence in Virtual Environments. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 40(3), 469-477. doi:10.1518/001872098779591368So, R. H. Y., Lo, W. T., & Ho, A. T. K. (2001). Effects of Navigation Speed on Motion Sickness Caused by an Immersive Virtual Environment. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 43(3), 452-461. doi:10.1518/001872001775898223Steuer, J. (1992). Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence. Journal of Communication, 42(4), 73-93. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1992.tb00812.xSullivan, G. M., & Feinn, R. (2012). Using Effect Size—or Why the P Value Is Not Enough. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 4(3), 279-282. doi:10.4300/jgme-d-12-00156.1Takatalo, J., Nyman, G., & Laaksonen, L. (2008). Components of human experience in virtual environments. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(1), 1-15. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2006.11.003Usoh, M., Catena, E., Arman, S., & Slater, M. (2000). Using Presence Questionnaires in Reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 9(5), 497-503. doi:10.1162/105474600566989Welch, R. B., Blackmon, T. T., Liu, A., Mellers, B. A., & Stark, L. W. (1996). The Effects of Pictorial Realism, Delay of Visual Feedback, and Observer Interactivity on the Subjective Sense of Presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 5(3), 263-273. doi:10.1162/pres.1996.5.3.263Witmer, B. G., Jerome, C. J., & Singer, M. J. (2005). The Factor Structure of the Presence Questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 14(3), 298-312. doi:10.1162/105474605323384654Zanbaka, C., Babu, S., Xiao, D., Ulinski, A., Hodges, L. F., & Lok, B. (s. f.). Effects of travel technique on cognition in virtual environments. IEEE Virtual Reality 2004. doi:10.1109/vr.2004.131006

Individuals' fixed digital mindset, internal HRM alignment and feelings of helplessness in virtual teams

Purpose The present study investigates whether individuals having a fixed digital mindset (comprises fundamental beliefs about technological ability and organizational resources as work becomes more digitalized) experience greater helplessness working in virtual teamwork environments. The authors examine how perceived internal human resource management (HRM) alignment moderates the positive relationship expected between individuals' fixed digital mindset and feelings of helplessness. Together, the paper aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the personal and contextual factors that influence an individual's experience of helplessness in virtual team settings. Design/methodology/approach The authors test the hypotheses using time-lagged survey data collected from 153 information technology (IT) engineers working in virtual teams in Europe. Findings The authors find that individuals with higher levels of fixed digital mindset experience greater helplessness in virtual teamwork environments than individuals with lower levels. Furthermore, the authors find that having higher-fixed beliefs about organizational resources is positively related to helplessness when individuals perceive that the broader HRM system is misaligned with the virtual teamwork environment. Research limitations/implications The data were obtained from IT engineers in Europe, which is potentially limiting the generalizability of the authors' findings to other work contexts and cultures. Practical implications The authors' study helps leaders in virtual teamwork environments to better understand and manage the personal and contextual factors that could affect individuals' well-being and effective functioning in such settings. Originality/value The authors' research contributes to the scant literature investigating the personal characteristics important in virtual teamwork environments and the contextual factors important for aligning virtual teamwork designs with the organizational system. The authors extend this research by looking at personal and contextual factors together in a single model.acceptedVersio

Human Factors Virtual Analysis Techniques for NASA's Space Launch System Ground Support using MSFC's Virtual Environments Lab (VEL)

Using virtual environments to assess complex large scale human tasks provides timely and cost effective results to evaluate designs and to reduce operational risks during assembly and integration of the Space Launch System (SLS). NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) uses a suite of tools to conduct integrated virtual analysis during the design phase of the SLS Program. Siemens Jack is a simulation tool that allows engineers to analyze human interaction with CAD designs by placing a digital human model into the environment to test different scenarios and assess the design's compliance to human factors requirements. Engineers at MSFC are using Jack in conjunction with motion capture and virtual reality systems in MSFC's Virtual Environments Lab (VEL). The VEL provides additional capability beyond standalone Jack to record and analyze a person performing a planned task to assemble the SLS at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The VEL integrates Vicon Blade motion capture system, Siemens Jack, Oculus Rift, and other virtual tools to perform human factors assessments. By using motion capture and virtual reality, a more accurate breakdown and understanding of how an operator will perform a task can be gained. By virtual analysis, engineers are able to determine if a specific task is capable of being safely performed by both a 5% (approx. 5ft) female and a 95% (approx. 6'1) male. In addition, the analysis will help identify any tools or other accommodations that may to help complete the task. These assessments are critical for the safety of ground support engineers and keeping launch operations on schedule. Motion capture allows engineers to save and examine human movements on a frame by frame basis, while virtual reality gives the actor (person performing a task in the VEL) an immersive view of the task environment. This presentation will discuss the need of human factors for SLS and the benefits of analyzing tasks in NASA MSFC's VEL

D-SAV360: A Dataset of Gaze Scanpaths on 360° Ambisonic Videos

Understanding human visual behavior within virtual reality environments is crucial to fully leverage their potential. While previous research has provided rich visual data from human observers, existing gaze datasets often suffer from the absence of multimodal stimuli. Moreover, no dataset has yet gathered eye gaze trajectories (i.e., scanpaths) for dynamic content with directional ambisonic sound, which is a critical aspect of sound perception by humans. To address this gap, we introduce D-SAV360, a dataset of 4,609 head and eye scanpaths for 360° videos with first-order ambisonics. This dataset enables a more comprehensive study of multimodal interaction on visual behavior in virtual reality environments. We analyze our collected scanpaths from a total of 87 participants viewing 85 different videos and show that various factors such as viewing mode, content type, and gender significantly impact eye movement statistics. We demonstrate the potential of D-SAV360 as a benchmarking resource for state-of-the-art attention prediction models and discuss its possible applications in further research. By providing a comprehensive dataset of eye movement data for dynamic, multimodal virtual environments, our work can facilitate future investigations of visual behavior and attention in virtual reality

Psychological and physiological human responses to simulated and real environments: A comparison between Photographs, 360° Panoramas, and Virtual Reality

[EN] Psychological research into human factors frequently uses simulations to study the relationship between human behaviour and the environment. Their validity depends on their similarity with the physical environments. This paper aims to validate three environmental-simulation display formats: photographs, 360° panoramas, and virtual reality. To do this we compared the psychological and physiological responses evoked by simulated environments set-ups to those from a physical environment setup; we also assessed the users' sense of presence. Analysis show that 360° panoramas offer the closest to reality results according to the participants' psychological responses, and virtual reality according to the physiological responses. Correlations between the feeling of presence and physiological and other psychological responses were also observed. These results may be of interest to researchers using environmental-simulation technologies currently available in order to replicate the experience of physical environments.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. Spain (Project TIN2013-45736-R).Higuera-Trujillo, JL.; López-Tarruella Maldonado, J.; Llinares Millán, MDC. (2017). Psychological and physiological human responses to simulated and real environments: A comparison between Photographs, 360° Panoramas, and Virtual Reality. Applied Ergonomics. 65:398-409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2017.05.006S3984096

Evolution of the Virtual Human: From Term to Potential Application in Psychiatry

Virtual reality applications in mental health have traditionally involved the creation of virtual environments that acted as provocative agents either for the purposes of the identification of disorders or their treatment. There is infrequent mention of the utilization of "virtual humans" despite the obvious significance of humans within our lives. More broadly, the term Virtual Human is frequently used in a number of contexts extending from its use as a term, modifying anything that needs to be modernized, to the application of 3D animated figures that exist in virtual realities. These applications refer to quite different phenomena in very different contexts leading to a high level of ambiguity and uncertainty when referring to virtual humans. In the following, the various applications of the term virtual human will be reviewed and critiqued through its most frequent applications, in various fields. They will be reviewed in an ascending manner from the least human of application to the most. Finally, a definition will be offered reflecting the potential complexity of the term as it reflects the expression of our most human factors, and how these are needed in the development of a model of a virtual human in psychiatry.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63235/1/10949310050078751.pd

Using teleporting, awareness and multiple views to improve teamwork in collaborative virtual environments

Mobile Group Dynamics (MGDs) are a suite of techniques that help people work together in large-scale collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). The present paper describes the implementation and evaluation of three additional MGDs techniques (teleporting, awareness and multiple views) which, when combined, produced a 4 times increase in the amount that participants communicated in a CVE and also significantly increased the extent to which participants communicated over extended distances in the CVE. The MGDs were evaluated using an urban planning scenario using groups of either seven (teleporting + awareness) or eight (teleporting + awareness + multiple views) participants. The study has implications for CVE designers, because it provides quantitative and qualitative data about how teleporting, awareness and multiple views improve groupwork in CVEs. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): C.2.4 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems – Distributed applications; H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems – Human factors; Software psychology; H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multimedia Information Systems – Artificial, augmented and virtual realities; H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization Interfaces – Collaborative computing; Computer-supported cooperative work; Synchronous interaction; I.3.7[Computer Graphics]: Three Dimensional Graphics and Realism – Virtual Realit