Luís Teixeira

Are Emergency Egress Signs Strong Enough to Overlap the Influence of the Environmental Variables

This paper aims to explore the strength of environmental variables (i.e., corridor width and brightness), in directing people to indoor locations during emergency situations. The existence of contradictory information was manipulated by inserting posted signs pointing to the opposite direction to the one suggested by the environmental variables. A Virtual Reality-based methodology was used to collect participants’ directional choices. Sixty-four participants had to find a specific room as quickly as possible in a virtual hotel in which they navigated through 12 corridor intersections (two-forced-choices). Two experimental conditions were considered (i.e., Signs and No-signs conditions) according to the exit signs availability. Results indicated that for the first decision point in an emergency situation with signs, 65.6% of the participants preferred to follow the wider corridor instead of the exit sign direction. Percentages of choices favoring the path opposite to that posted by the sign decreased along the escape route suggesting that with the repeated exposure to an exit sign people increased their compliance with it.

Evaluating Emotional Responses to the Interior Design of a Hospital Room: A Study Using Virtual Reality

Many studies have shown the ability of interior design elements (e.g., artwork, nature, home elements) to elicit positive emotions on hospital users thereby enhancing the healing process. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether such elements can affect users’ emotional responses during a VR experience. In this study we explored the influence of interior design elements (i.e., landscape poster, painting, plant and home chair), on the participants’ emotional responses after being exposed to 3D virtual hospital rooms. We used a short version of Zipers scales, developed by Zuckerman, to explore participants’ emotional responses regarding 28 rooms, resulting from all the possible combinations of the identified elements plus a neutral and a negative room. Our sample included 30 university students. The results show that the more elements present in the hospital room the more positive the emotional response. The landscape and artwork elements emitted positive responses, whereas the home chair did not.

Using Virtual Reality to Examine Hazard Perception in Package Design

Informing users about the correct hazard level associated with products can be one of the most important measures to help promote user safety while they handle hazardous household chemicals. The aim of this paper is to present pilot study’s results about the effectiveness of using a VR-based methodology to examine the influence of a container’s features (e.g., shapes) on the users’ perception of hazardousness. Previous works have mostly used 2D drawings for this type of study. Issues which may compromise the quality of future experiments: e.g., adequacy of VR devices, interaction quality, simulator-sickness, procedure and quality of the instruments (i.e., questionnaires) are discussed. Despite the fact that the key experiment has not yet been completed, very promising results have been obtained, suggesting that the VR simulator and the methodology adopted may provide a successful evaluation of the packages’ hazardousness.

Expression of Emotions by a Service Robot: A Pilot Study

A successful Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) depends on the empathy that the robot has the capability of instantiating on the user, namely through the expression of emotions. In this pilot study, we examined the recognition of emotions being expressed by a service robot in a virtual environment (VE), by university students. The VE was a corridor, neutral in terms of context of use. The robot’s facial expressions, body movements, and displacement were manipulated to express eight basic emotions. Results showed that participants had difficulties in recognizing the emotions (33% of success). Also, results suggested that the participants established empathy with the robot. Further work is needed to improve the emotional expression of this robot, which aims to interact with hospitalized children.

Sense of Presence in a VR-Based Study on Behavioral Compliance with Warnings

Recent researches suggest that Virtual Reality (VR) is amongst the best tools for examining behavioral compliance with warnings, therefore overcoming some ethical and methodological constrains that have been limiting this type of research. Yet, such evaluation using VR requires both usable and engaging virtual environments (VEs). This study examines the sense of presence experienced by the participants after having been immersed in a VE designed for evaluating the effect of sign type (static vs. dynamic) on compliance. The VR simulation tested here allowed participants to perform a realistic work-related task and an emergency egress, during which they were supposed to interact with warnings and exit signs. A neutral condition (i.e., no/minimal signs) was used as a control condition. Subjective and objective data were gathered from two sources, respectively, i.e., a post-hoc questionnaire administered to the participants, and a video analysis of the participants’ interaction behavior during the VR simulation. Results reveal high levels of presence across the three experimental conditions.

Environmental Affordances as a Way to Help in the Design of Videogame Worlds

Videogame worlds can be read like built environments, so the approaches used to plan real environments may help the design of virtual worlds. In this way, this paper presents a pilot study that the main objective is to investigate affordances of the environment that can influence people’s path selection, namely the corridor width. The main hypothesis is that the corridor width will influence people’s preference regarding the path they choose in order to escape from a building (in an emergency situation). Stereoscopic images projected in a screen were presented using a constant stimulus method combined with a two-forced choice method to collect user’s responses. Findings suggests that there is a tendency to bear right when users are in an “T” intersection where the right and left corridors are equal, and they tend to turn to the larger corridor regardless its direction.

Strategy for the Development of a Walk-In-Place Interface for Virtual Reality

Many features of a Virtual Reality system can influence the immersion and the sense of presence. Navigation is one of those features, since proprioceptive and vestibular cues can have a positive impact on immersion and sense of presence. This is especially important for studies about human behavior, where behavioral responses should be as close as in the real world. Different types of interfaces are been developed to be more natural and closer to moving in a real environment. A Walk-In-Place (WIP) interface can be used in small rooms and gives some proprioceptive and vestibular cues. A participant walks in the same place and a device captures that movement and translates it to movement inside the Virtual Environment. This paper presents a strategy for implementing a WIP interface using only one inertial orientation sensor, placed above the knee, mainly about the calibration and real-time detection phases and the approach taken on direction changing.