Jeffrey W. Bertrand

Effects of calibration to visual and haptic feedback on near-field depth perception in an immersive virtual environment

Distances are regularly underestimated in immersive virtual environments (IVEs) [Witmer and Kline 1998; Loomis and Knapp 2003]. Few experiments, however, have examined the ability of calibration to overcome distortions of depth perception in IVEs. This experiment is designed to examine the effect of calibration via haptic and visual feedback on distance estimates in an IVE. Participants provided verbal and physical reach responses to target distances presented during three sessions; a baseline measure without feedback, a calibration session with visual and haptic feedback, and finally a post-calibration session without feedback. Feedback was shown to calibrate distance estimates within an IVE. Discussion focused on the possibility that costly solutions and research endeavors seeking to remedy the compression of distances may become less necessary if users are simply given the opportunity to use manual activity to calibrate to the IVE.

An evolving multi-agent scenario generation framework for simulations in preventive medicine education

We describe the design, implementation and evaluation of a novel multi-agent scenario generation framework for interactive virtual reality simulations towards preventive medicine education. Our scenario generation framework is based on recordings of human movements from a distributed sensor networks deployed in a real-world physical setting. The components of our framework include the generation of unique virtual agent behaviors from the sensor data, and algorithms for the generation of low level or gross movement behaviors such as path determination, directional traffic flows, collision avoidance and overtaking. The framework also includes the generation of high level fine actions for multi-agents such as techniques for interactive activities in pedagogical scenarios based on environment and temporal triggers. We applied our multi-agent scenario generation framework in an interactive simulation for hand hygiene education, and conduct an initial usability study to assess the educational benefits of the simulation to nursing students and evaluated the performance characteristics of our framework. Results of our quantitative and qualitative evaluations suggest that our framework was robust in creating engaging, compelling, and realistic interactive training scenarios with multiple virtual agents in simulated hospital situations.

A comparative evaluation of viewing metaphors on psychophysical skills education in an interactive virtual environment

In an empirical evaluation, we examined the effect of viewing condition on psychophysical skills education in an interactive 3D simulation to train users in electrical circuitry. We compared an immersive head-mounted display (HMD)-based viewing metaphor versus a limited, desktop-based virtual reality (DVR) viewing metaphor with interaction using a spatial user interface. Psychophysical skills education involves the association of cognitive functions with motor functions to make the task autonomous with repeated practice. In electrical circuitry, this is demonstrated by the fine movements involved in handling and manipulating components on the electrical circuit, particularly while measuring electrical parameters. We created an interactive circuitry simulation (IBAS) where participants could learn about electrical measurement instruments such as the ammeter, voltmeter and multimeter, in a simulated breadboard VR system. Twenty-four participants utilized the simulation (12 in each condition), and the quantitative and qualitative aspects of psychophysical skills education with respect to the viewing metaphor were examined. Each viewing condition in IBAS was head-tracked and non-stereoscopic. Perspective correction was coupled with head-tracking in the DVR condition. The key quantitative measures were cognitive questionnaires addressing different levels of Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy and a real-world psychophysical task addressing various levels of Dave’s psychomotor taxonomy. The qualitative measures were the Witmer–Singer sense of presence questionnaire and self-report. Results suggest that there was a significant increase in cognition post-experiment in both DVR and HMD viewing conditions in levels of knowledge, application, analysis and evaluation. Results also revealed a significant learning benefit with respect to the higher level concepts pertaining to evaluation in the HMD condition as compared to DVR. Participants seem to have enjoyed a greater level of affordance in task performance and spent a larger amount of time to complete the simulated exercises as well as manually maneuvered to further distances in the HMD viewing condition as compared to DVR viewing.

Virtual agents based simulation for training healthcare workers in hand hygiene procedures

The goal of our work is the design and implementation of a virtual agents based interactive simulation for teaching and training healthcare workers in hand hygiene protocols. The interactive training simulation features a virtual instructor who teaches the trainee the Five Moments of hand hygiene, recommended by the Centers of Disease Control and the World Health Organization, via instructions and demonstrations in a tutorial phase. In an interactive training phase, a virtual health care worker demonstrates by interacting with a virtual patient and the patients environment in ten randomly generated virtual scenarios. After watching each scenario the trainee evaluates if the virtual healthcare workers actions are in accordance with the Five Moments of Hand Hygiene procedure. In a feedback phase, the trainee receives feedback on their performance in the training phase after which the trainee can either exit or return to any phase of the interactive simulation. We describe the design and development of the hospital environment, simulated virtual instructor, health care worker and patient, and the interactive simulation components towards teaching and training in healthcare best practices associated with hand hygiene.

The role of dimensional symmetry on bimanual psychomotor skills education in immersive virtual environments

The need for virtual reality applications for education and training involving bimanual dexterous activities has been increasing in recent years. However, it is unclear how the amount of correspondence between a virtual interaction metaphor to the real-world equivalent, otherwise known as dimensional symmetry, affects bimanual pscyhomotor skills training and how skills learned in the virtual simulation transfer to the real world. How does the number of degrees of freedom enhance or hinder the learning process? Does the increase in dimensional symmetry affect cognitive load? In an empirical evaluation, we compare the effectiveness of a natural 6-DOF interaction metaphor to a simplified 3-DOF metaphor. Our simulation interactively educates users in the step-by-step process of taking a precise measurement using calipers and micrometers in a simulated technical workbench environment. We conducted a usability study to evaluate the user experience and pedagogical benefits using measures including a pre and post cognition questionnaire over all levels of Blooms taxonomy, workload assessment, system usability, and real world psychomotor assessment tasks. Results from the pre and post cognition questionnaires suggest that learning outcomes improved throughout all levels of Blooms taxonomy for both conditions, and trends in the data suggest that the 6-DOF metaphor was more effective in real-world skill transference compared to the 3-DOF metaphor.

Interactive breadboard activity simulation (IBAS) for psychomotor skills education in electrical circuitry

We present an interactive breadboard activity simulation (IBAS) to educate users in acquiring psychomotor skills in electrical circuitry pertaining to the ammeter, voltmeter and multimeter instruments. Psychomotor skills learning involves the association of cognitive functions with motor functions to make the task autonomous with repeated practice, and promoting better recall. In electrical circuitry, this is demonstrated by the fine movements involved in handling and manipulating components on the electrical circuit, particularly while measuring electrical parameters that facilitates learning. Two display metaphors are currently implemented in IBAS, the FishtankVR (FVR) and head-mounted display (HMD) viewing conditions. In an initial user study, we found that users effectively learned the psychomotor skills pertaining to electrical circuitry using IBAS.

An evaluation of immersive viewing on spatial knowledge acquisition in spherical panoramic environments

Abstract We report the results of an experiment conducted to examine the effects of immersive viewing on a common spatial knowledge acquisition task of spatial updating task in a spherical panoramic environment (SPE). A spherical panoramic environment, such as Google Street View, is an environment that is comprised of spherical images captured at regular intervals in a real world setting augmented with virtual navigational aids such as paths, dynamic maps, and textual annotations. Participants navigated the National Mall area of Washington, DC, in Google Street View in one of two viewing conditions; desktop monitor or a head-mounted display with a head orientation tracker. In an exploration phase, participants were first asked to navigate and observe landmarks on a pre-specified path. Then, in a testing phase, participants were asked to travel the same path and to rotate their view in order to look in the direction of the perceived landmarks at certain waypoints. The angular difference between participants’ gaze directions and the landmark directions was recorded. We found no significant difference between the immersive and desktop viewing conditions on participants’ accuracy of direction to landmarks as well as no difference in their sense of presence scores. However, based on responses to a post-experiment questionnaire, participants in both conditions tended to use a cognitive or procedural technique to inform direction to landmarks. Taken together, these findings suggest that in both conditions where participants experience travel based on teleportation between waypoints, the visual cues available in the SPE, such as street signs, buildings and trees, seem to have a stronger influence in determining the directions to landmarks than the egocentric cues such as first-person perspective and natural head-coupled motion experienced in the immersive viewing condition.

Poster: Comparing usability of a single versus dual interaction metaphor in a multitask healthcare simulation

We present the results of a user study performed within a multitask healthcare simulation, where nurses are required to care for virtual patients within a 3D virtual environment while recording data in a 2D graphical user interface (GUI) based electronic health record system. We evaluated whether a single interaction metaphor of mouse and keyboard for both virtual and GUI sub-systems of our simulation was superior in terms of user preference and performance to a dual interaction metaphor of using touchscreen for the virtual environment while using mouse and keyboard for the GUI. User preference and performance both indicate that the single interaction metaphor was more usable, although each technique was sufficiently usable for accomplishing simulation goals.

The effects of presentation method and simulation fidelity on psychomotor education in a bimanual metrology training simulation

In this study, we empirically evaluated the effects of presentation method and simulation fidelity on task performance and psychomotor skills acquisition in an immersive bimanual simulation towards precision metrology education. In a 2 × 2 experiment design, we investigated a large-screen immersive display (LSID) with a head-mounted display (HMD), and the presence versus absence of gravity. Advantages of the HMD include interacting with the simulation in a more natural manner as compared to using a large-screen immersive display due to the similarities between the interactions afforded in the virtual compared to the real-world task. Suspending the laws of physics may have an effect on usability and in turn could affect learning outcomes. Our dependent variables consisted of a pre and post cognition questionnaire, quantitative performance measures, perceived workload and system usefulness, and a psychomotor assessment to measure to what extent transfer of learning took place from the virtual to the real world. Results indicate that the HMD condition was preferable to the immersive display in several metrics while the no-gravity condition resulted in users adopting strategies that were not advantageous for task performance.

Serious games for training, rehabilitation and workforce development

We present a set of demonstrations of current work in the Clemson University Virtual Environments Group involving the development and testing of interactive virtual environments for applications in training, rehabilitation and workforce development. All of these applications are designed to leverage commodity hardware such as HDTVs, game controllers, and the Kinect sensor.