Refine
H-BRS Bibliography
- yes (18) (remove)
Departments, institutes and facilities
- Institute of Visual Computing (IVC) (18) (remove)
Document Type
- Conference Object (10)
- Article (6)
- Contribution to a Periodical (1)
- Research Data (1)
Year of publication
- 2020 (18) (remove)
Language
- English (18)
Keywords
- 2D Level Design (1)
- 3D interfaces (1)
- Co-located Collaboration (1)
- Cognition (1)
- Computer-supported Cooperative Work (1)
- Executive functions (1)
- Group Behavior (1)
- Groupware (1)
- Older adults (1)
- Physical activity (1)
Telepresence robots allow users to be spatially and socially present in remote environments. Yet, it can be challenging to remotely operate telepresence robots, especially in dense environments such as academic conferences or workplaces. In this paper, we primarily focus on the effect that a speed control method, which automatically slows the telepresence robot down when getting closer to obstacles, has on user behaviors. In our first user study, participants drove the robot through a static obstacle course with narrow sections. Results indicate that the automatic speed control method significantly decreases the number of collisions. For the second study we designed a more naturalistic, conference-like experimental environment with tasks that require social interaction, and collected subjective responses from the participants when they were asked to navigate through the environment. While about half of the participants preferred automatic speed control because it allowed for smoother and safer navigation, others did not want to be influenced by an automatic mechanism. Overall, the results suggest that automatic speed control simplifies the user interface for telepresence robots in static dense environments, but should be considered as optionally available, especially in situations involving social interactions.
OSC data
(2020)
An internal model of self-motion provides a fundamental basis for action in our daily lives, yet little is known about its development. The ability to control self-motion develops in youth and often deteriorates with advanced age. Self-motion generates relative motion between the viewer and the environment. Thus, the smoothness of the visual motion created will vary as control improves. Here, we study the influence of the smoothness of visually simulated self-motion on an observer's ability to judge how far they have travelled over a wide range of ages. Previous studies were typically highly controlled and concentrated on university students. But are such populations representative of the general public? And are there developmental and sex effects? Here, estimates of distance travelled (visual odometry) during visually induced self-motion were obtained from 466 participants drawn from visitors to a public science museum. Participants were presented with visual motion that simulated forward linear self-motion through a field of lollipops using a head-mounted virtual reality display. They judged the distance of their simulated motion by indicating when they had reached the position of a previously presented target. The simulated visual motion was presented with or without horizontal or vertical sinusoidal jitter. Participants' responses indicated that they felt they travelled further in the presence of vertical jitter. The effectiveness of the display increased with age over all jitter conditions. The estimated time for participants to feel that they had started to move also increased slightly with age. There were no differences between the sexes. These results suggest that age should be taken into account when generating motion in a virtual reality environment. Citizen science studies like this can provide a unique and valuable insight into perceptual processes in a truly representative sample of people.
Are There Extended Cognitive Improvements from Different Kinds of Acute Bouts of Physical Activity?
(2020)
Acute bouts of physical activity of at least moderate intensity have shown to enhance cognition in young as well as older adults. This effect has been observed for different kinds of activities such as aerobic or strength and coordination training. However, only few studies have directly compared these activities regarding their effectiveness. Further, most previous studies have mainly focused on inhibition and have not examined other important core executive functions (i.e., updating, switching) which are essential for our behavior in daily life (e.g., staying focused, resisting temptations, thinking before acting), as well. Therefore, this study aimed to directly compare two kinds of activities, aerobic and coordinative, and examine how they might affect executive functions (i.e., inhibition, updating, and switching) in a test-retest protocol. It is interesting for practical implications, as coordinative exercises, for example, require little space and would be preferable in settings such as an office or a classroom. Furthermore, we designed our experiment in such a way that learning effects were controlled. Then, we tested the influence of acute bouts of physical activity on the executive functioning in both young and older adults (young 16–22 years, old 65–80 years). Overall, we found no differences between aerobic and coordinative activities and, in fact, benefits from physical activities occurred only in the updating tasks in young adults. Additionally, we also showed some learning effects that might influence the results. Thus, it is important to control cognitive tests for learning effects in test-retest studies as well as to analyze effects from physical activity on a construct level of executive functions.
Foreword to the Special Section on the Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality 2019 (SVR 2019)
(2020)
Telepresence robots allow people to participate in remote spaces, yet they can be difficult to manoeuvre with people and obstacles around. We designed a haptic-feedback system called “FeetBack," which users place their feet in when driving a telepresence robot. When the robot approaches people or obstacles, haptic proximity and collision feedback are provided on the respective sides of the feet, helping inform users about events that are hard to notice through the robot’s camera views. We conducted two studies: one to explore the usage of FeetBack in virtual environments, another focused on real environments.We found that FeetBack can increase spatial presence in simple virtual environments. Users valued the feedback to adjust their behaviour in both types of environments, though it was sometimes too frequent or unneeded for certain situations after a period of time. These results point to the value of foot-based haptic feedback for telepresence robot systems, while also the need to design context-sensitive haptic feedback.
Comparing Non-Visual and Visual Guidance Methods for Narrow Field of View Augmented Reality Displays
(2020)
Modern Monte-Carlo-based rendering systems still suffer from the computational complexity involved in the generation of noise-free images, making it challenging to synthesize interactive previews. We present a framework suited for rendering such previews of static scenes using a caching technique that builds upon a linkless octree. Our approach allows for memory-efficient storage and constant-time lookup to cache diffuse illumination at multiple hitpoints along the traced paths. Non-diffuse surfaces are dealt with in a hybrid way in order to reconstruct view-dependent illumination while maintaining interactive frame rates. By evaluating the visual fidelity against ground truth sequences and by benchmarking, we show that our approach compares well to low-noise path-traced results, but with a greatly reduced computational complexity, allowing for interactive frame rates. This way, our caching technique provides a useful tool for global illumination previews and multi-view rendering.
Evaluation of a Multi-Layer 2.5D display in comparison to conventional 3D stereoscopic glasses
(2020)
In this paper we propose and evaluate a custom-build projection-based multilayer 2.5D display, consisting of three layers of images, and compare performance to a stereoscopic 3D display. Stereoscopic vision can increase the involvement and enhance game experience, however may induce possible side effects, e.g. motion sickness and simulator sickness. To overcome the disadvantage of multiple discrete depths, in our system perspective rendering and head-tracking is used. A study was performed to evaluate this display with 20 participants playing custom-designed games. The results indicated that the multi-layer display caused fewer side effects than the stereoscopic display and provided good usability. The participants also stated a better or equal spatial perception, while the cognitive load stayed the same.
Gone But Not Forgotten: Evaluating Performance and Scalability of Real-Time Mesoscopic Agents
(2020)
This paper presents groupware to study group behavior while conducting a creative task on large, high-resolution displays. Moreover, we present the results of a between-subjects study. In the study, 12 groups with two participants each prototyped a 2D level on a 7m x 2.5m large, high-resolution display using tablet-PCs for interaction. Six groups underwent a condition where group members had equal roles and interaction possibilities. Another six groups worked in a condition where group members had different roles: level designer and 2D artist. The results revealed that in the different roles condition, the participants worked significantly more tightly and created more assets. We could also detect some shortcomings for that configuration. We discuss the gained insights regarding system configuration, groupware interfaces, and groups behavior.
This paper introduces FaceHaptics, a novel haptic display based on a robot arm attached to a head-mounted virtual reality display. It provides localized, multi-directional and movable haptic cues in the form of wind, warmth, moving and single-point touch events and water spray to dedicated parts of the face not covered by the head-mounted display.The easily extensible system, however, can principally mount any type of compact haptic actuator or object. User study 1 showed that users appreciate the directional resolution of cues, and can judge wind direction well, especially when they move their head and wind direction is adjusted dynamically to compensate for head rotations. Study 2 showed that adding FaceHaptics cues to a VR walkthrough can significantly improve user experience, presence, and emotional responses.