Virtual Reality (VR) users often experience postural instability, i.e., balance problems, which could be a major barrier to universal usability and accessibility for all, especially for persons with balance impairments. Prior research has confirmed the imbalance effect, but minimal research has been conducted to reduce this effect. We recruited 42 participants (with balance impairments: 21, without balance impairments: 21) to investigate the impact of several auditory techniques on balance in VR, specifically spatial audio, static rest frame audio, rhythmic audio, and audio mapped to the center of pressure (CoP). Participants performed two types of tasks - standing visual exploration and standing reach and grasp. Within-subject results showed that each auditory technique improved balance in VR for both persons with and without balance impairments. Spatial and CoP audio improved balance significantly more than other auditory conditions. The techniques presented in this research could be used in future virtual environments to improve standing balance and help push VR closer to universal usability.
The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of several auditory feedback modalities on gait (i.e., walking patterns) in virtual reality (VR). Prior research has substantiated gait disturbances in VR users as one of the primary obstacles to VR usability. However, minimal research has been done to mitigate this issue. We recruited 39 participants (with mobility impairments: 18, without mobility impairments: 21) who completed timed walking tasks in a real-world environment and the same tasks in a VR environment with various types of auditory feedback. Within-subject results showed th…
The effectiveness of simple sensory cues for retraining gait have been demonstrated, yet the feasibility of humanoid avatars for entrainment have yet to be investigated. Here, we describe the development of a novel method of visually cued training, in the form of a virtual partner, and investigate its ability to provide movement guidance in the form of stepping. Real stepping movements were mapped onto an avatar using motion capture data. The trajectory of one of the avatar step cycles was then accelerated or decelerated by 15% to create a perturbation. Healthy participants were motion capture…
Virtual Reality (VR) users often encounter postural instability, i.e., balance issues, which can be a significant impediment to universal usability and accessibility, particularly for those with balance impairments. Prior research has validated imbalance issues, but little effort has been made to mitigate them. We recruited 39 participants (with balance impairments: 18, without balance impairments: 21) to examine the effect of various vibrotactile feedback techniques on balance in virtual reality, specifically spatial vibrotactile, static vibrotactile, rhythmic vibrotactile, and vibrotactile f…
Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Neural Networks (NNs), has become increasingly popular. However, people usually treat AI as a tool, focusing on improving outcome, accuracy, and performance while paying less attention to the representation of AI itself. We present AIive, an interactive visualization of AI in Virtual Reality (VR) that brings AI "alive". AIive enables users to manipulate the parameters of NNs with virtual hands and provides auditory feedback for the real-time values of loss, accuracy, and hyperparameters. Thus, AIive contributes an artistic and intuitive way to represent…
Exploring the Effect of Heights and User Stance on User Experience in Extended Reality Climbing
Technische Universität Berlin（柏林工业大学）；German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)（德国人工智能研究中心）；Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences（哈姆-利普施泰特应用科技大学）
Many researchers have developed VR systems for people with visual impairments by using various audio feedback techniques. However, there has been much less study of collaborative VR systems in which people with visual impairments and people with able-body can participate together. Therefore, we developed a VR showdown game which is similar to a real Showdown game in which two players can play together in the same virtual environment. We incorporate auditory distance perception using the HRTF (Head Related Transform Function) based on a spatial position in VR. We developed two modes in the show…
The state of the art review broadly oversees the use of novel research utilized in the creation of virtual environments applied in interactive art experiences, with a specific focus on the application of procedural animation in spatially augmented reality (SAR) exhibitions. These art exhibitions frequently combine sensory displays that appeal, replace, and augment the visual, auditory and touch or haptic senses. We analyze and break down art-technology related innovations in the last three years, and thoroughly identify the most recent and vibrant applications of interactive art experiences in…
There have been a resurge lately on virtual therapy and other virtual- and tele-medicine services due to the new normal of practicing 'shelter at home'. In this paper, we propose a creative drawing game for virtual therapy and investigate user's comfort and movement freedom in a pilot study. In a mixed-design study, healthy participants (N=16, 8 females) completed one of the easy or hard trajectories of the virtual therapy game in standing and seated arrangements using a virtual-reality headset. The results from participants' movement accuracy, task completion time, and usability questionnaire…
Occlusion-induced risk and interventions in pedestrian-autonomous truck interactions on multi-lane roads: A virtual reality study
University College London（伦敦大学学院）；Ningbo University（宁波大学）；The University of Hong Kong（香港大学）；Shanghai Maritime University（上海海事大学）；Tongji University（同济大学）
We developed a novel assessment platform with untethered virtual reality, 3-dimensional sounds, and pressure sensing floor mat to help assess the walking balance and negotiation of obstacles given diverse sensory load and/or cognitive load. The platform provides an immersive 3D city-like scene with anticipated/unanticipated virtual obstacles. Participants negotiate the obstacles with perturbations of: auditory load by spatial audio, cognitive load by a memory task, and visual flow by generated by avatars movements at various amounts and speeds. A VR headset displays the scenes while providing …
This paper proposes the use of a non-immersive virtual reality rehabilitation system ReHabgame developed using Microsoft Kinect and the Thalmic Labs Myo gesture control armband. The ReHabgame was developed based on two third-person video games that provide a feasible possibility of assessing postural control and functional reach tests. It accurately quantifies specific postural control mechanisms including timed standing balance, functional reach tests using real-time anatomical landmark orientation, joint velocity, and acceleration while end trajectories were calculated using an inverse kinem…
Virtual reality (VR) has seen increased use for training and instruction. Designers can enable VR users to gain insights into their own performance by visualizing telemetry data from their actions in VR. Our ability to detect patterns and trends visually suggests the use of data visualization as a tool for users to identify strategies for improved performance. Typical tasks in VR training scenarios are manipulation of 3D objects (e.g., for learning how to maintain a jet engine) and navigation (e.g., to learn the geography of a building or landscape before traveling on-site). In this paper, we …
Assessing the performance of human movements during teleoperation and virtual reality is a challenging problem, particularly in 3D space due to complex spatial settings. Despite the presence of a multitude of metrics, a compelling standardized 3D metric is yet missing, aggravating inter-study comparability between different studies. Hence, evaluating human performance in virtual environments is a long-standing research goal, and a performance metric that combines two or more metrics under one formulation remains largely unexplored, particularly in higher dimensions. The absence of such a metri…
Introducing WARM-VR: Benchmark Dataset for Multimodal Wearable Affect Recognition in Virtual Reality
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa（Ottawa 大学电气工程与计算机科学学院）；Computer Science, University of Ottawa（Ottawa 大学计算机科学系）；Computer Vision Department, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence（摩根·bin·扎耶德人工智能大学计算机视觉部门）
