Children's memory of a story experienced with virtual reality versus traditional media technology

Immersive Virtual Reality Technology (IVR) is a visual multi-sensory computer-simulated environment that perceptually surrounds an individual, creating the illusion that one has “stepped inside” and is included in, and interacting with the generated world. Although IVR has been suggested as a tool to enhance learning, existing work has not examined how IVR presentations, compared with other types of storytelling, facilitate or interfere with children’s memory formation. Here, we present data from a study of seventy 6- and 7-year-old children randomly assigned to experience a story in one of three modalities: IVR, video, or a paper-based book. We assessed the children’s story recall and their ability to identify the protagonist’s emotions. Results showed that, overall, children in the IVR condition performed better in the memory-recall task than the children in the video and book conditions. The most pronounced difference in memory performance was between the IVR and book conditions. In the IVR versus video conditions, 6-year-olds performed significantly better in the IVR condition than in the video condition, while 7-year-olds performed similarly in both digital-story conditions. We found no effects of condition on children’s attribution of emotions to the story’s protagonist. We conclude that IVR may enhance children’s ability to learn story content in certain situations.

Immersive Virtual Reality Implementations in Developmental Psychology

In recent years, immersive virtual reality technology (IVR) has seen a substantial improvement in its quality, affordability, and ability to simulate the real world. Virtual reality in psychology can be used for three basic purposes: immersion, simulation, and a combination of both. While the psychological implementations of IVR have been predominately used with adults, this review seeks to update our knowledge about the uses and effectiveness of IVR with children. Specifically, its use as a tool for pain distraction, neuropsychological assessment, and skills training. Results showed that IVR is a useful tool when it is used either for immersive or simulative purposes (e.g., pain distraction, neuropsychological assessment), but when its use requires both simulation (of the real world) and immersion (e.g., a vivid environment), it is trickier to implement effectively.

Human-Avatar Interaction in Virtual Environment to Assess and Train Sensorimotor: Application to the Slap Shot in Hockey

Here we present the conception, implementation and application of a virtual environment simulator dedicated to the assessment and training of slap shot performance in hockey. The simulator is based on human-avatar interaction, namely a real shooter and a virtual goalkeeper whose behavior is dependent on that of the shooter. The synthesis of the virtual goalkeeper relied on a high-quality model and realistic, motion-captured movements. A regression model based on Kriging was used to predict in real-time the shooter's behavior in order to trigger the blocking moves of the virtual goalkeeper at the right time. Our model provided accurate predicted values as well as an estimation of the reliability of these values, which allowed us to optimize the behavioral animation of the virtual goalkeeper. We then ran a validation experiment testing the effectiveness of our simulator. The simulator proved very useful both to assess the initial performance of the players and to train and improve this performance. In particular, training as little as 3 hours with our simulator gave rise to substantial and significant improvements (up to 22 percent) of the redirection threshold, i.e., the minimum time required to successfully redirect a shot during movement execution when the outcome is imperiled. Importantly, in comparison with ‘classical’ training methods, our simulator better triggers (precisely and timely) the movements of the goalkeeper based on the movements of the shooter.

Affective Multimodal Control of Virtual Characters

In this paper we report about the use of computer generated affect to control body and mind of cognitively modeled virtual characters. We use the computational model of affect ALMA that is able to simulate three different affect types in real-time. The computation of affect is based on a novel approach of an appraisal language. Both the use of elements of the appraisal language and the simulation of different affect types has been evaluated. Affect is used to control facial expressions, facial complexions, affective animations, posture, and idle behavior on the body layer and the selection of dialogue strategies on the mind layer. To enable a fine-grained control of these aspects a Player Markup Language (PML) has been developed. The PML is player-independent and allows a sophisticated control of character actions coordinated by high-level temporal constraints. An Action Encoder module maps the output of ALMA to PML actions using affect display rules. These actions drive the real-time rendering of affect, gesture and speech parameters of virtual characters, which we call Virtual Humans.

Usefulness and needs construction process in innovative artefacts: an exploratory study of designers’ viewpoints

Designing useful emerging technologies (e.g., Virtual Reality) needs that multidisciplinary teams composed of engineers, graphic designers and ergonomists. These designers with heterogeneous and various backgrounds have to dialog together to satisfy users’ needs in the software design. This depends on their representations and viewpoints. This paper explores how the usefulness and needs construction (phases, methods, tools and stakeholders) are currently considered in design literature and by different designers’ profiles through their viewpoints. Semi-structured interviews were performed with 10 designers and collected verbal data were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. Results suggest that 1) viewpoints are often specific to a designer profile because of specialized literatures, profession and background; 2) some viewpoints are common to several designers’ profiles probably because of experiences and their former integrations in multidisciplinary projects. These findings allow us to advocate some recommendations to project leaders and to suggest a scientific perspective for future study on intra-group variability.

ConVRgence (VRIC) Virtual Reality International Conference Proceedings

This issue gathers all the articles presented at the scientific conference ConVRgence (VRIC) which took place during Laval Virtual World 2020 (April 22-24).

Exploring human behavior with Grand Theft Auto V: A study of assisted cognition in wayfinding

The rise of virtual reality has overcome many of the methodological challenges faced by researchers studying spatial navigation. Yet, the difficulty in developing life-like virtual settings still remains a substantial barrier to most studies when fidelity to the real world has to be achieved in order to ensure some psychological validity of the results. Moreover, the variety of the settings results in standardization issues across studies. Our argument is that widely available video games could represent a worthwhile alternative to laboratory-made virtual environments, while providing a satisfactory methodological quality. This study assessed a prototype of landmark-based navigational aid by administering wayfinding tasks in the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Our results provide evidence that this video game offers a transparent and adaptable way to investigate cognitive processes with high experimental control and psychological validity. Recommendations towards the use of video game-based methodologies for future research are discussed.

Improving Virtual Reality Applications in CAD through Semantics

In this article we propose an architecture for the inclusion and exploitation of semantic aspects in a CAD environment. Our schema focuses on the enhancement and improvement of a commercial (general purpose) CAD system on its Virtual Reality (VR) capabilities. There is a need in combining CAD and semantics in the new generation of computer assisted engineering systems. Usually semantic aspects in traditional CAD applications relay on the user’s tacit knowledge, a fact that slows the learning curve while the user is getting trained with a new tool, no matter if he is an expert in others. Moreover, current CAD programs offer a myriad of options to the designer, but their limited integration of the non geometric information (e.g. PDM systems), and in general the semantics of the design process, can still be improved for the current needs of the industry. We argue that the use of semantics could improve the workflow and capabilities of the software and would benefit a new user (non experienced one) in order to produce better results in shorter times. In this paper our main focus is the enhancement of the visualization and VR capabilities in generic CAD applications. Our semantic CAD framework uses ontology modeling as well as engineering standards in order to conceptualize and exploit the information contained in a CAD model. To show some benefits of our proposed schema, we present two cases in different engineering domains (plant design and Steel detailing design), where the inclusion of semantics empowers a VR experience.

Effect of a short rest period on associative and relational memory performance: A Virtual Reality study

Virtual reality immerses individuals in 3D environments where spatial properties are similar to those of real life. Virtual reality can therefore be effective and relevant in the study of memory processing, especially when spatial properties are involved. We studied the effect of a 20-minute rest period on memory performance for associative and relational learnings. Eighty-one participants were placed in a virtual environment in which they learned 24 associations implicating objects and their respective precise location. As expected, the performance of associative memory was improved by a rest period between study and test phases. We discuss these results and the benefits of using an immersive virtual environment for such memory investigation. In addition, elaborating our environment was highly informative and led to several recommendations that we believe could be useful for researchers who would like to rely on virtual reality for investigating memory.

Literature review of locomotion techniques in virtual reality

This study represents a systematic literature review in which we explored the locomotion techniques in virtual reality between 2012 and 2019. We analysed and compared 22 locomotion methods that we have identified in 26 papers included in our review. The objective is to better understand relevant locomotion techniques and their impact on the user experience. The review of the literature has shown a wide range of different locomotion techniques which each technique is characterized by different advantages and drawbacks, but classic locomotion techniques such as joystick outperformed all the proposed technique in the reviewed studies. We also proposed a taxonomy and two types of evaluation for locomotion techniques in virtual environment. These elements provide guidelines that may help researchers to choose the most adapted locomotion technique according to the aim of their study.