No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Virtual reality: A new method to investigate cognitive load during navigation
... To the best of our knowledge, only two studies have attempted to study travellers' cognitive load. The first revealed that occasional travellers showed higher cognitive load responses than regular travellers in both environmental conditions (Armougum, Orriols, Gaston-Bellegarde, Joie-La Marle, & Piolino, 2019). The second demonstrated the influence of higher cognitive load on the ability to perform a navigation task by analysing differences in EEG neural responses. ...
... navigation ability remains unknown. The role of virtual environment cognitive load is also scarcely studied (Armougum et al., 2019). Information processing generates cognitive load, which in turn affects the ability to learn and represent information (Sweller, 1988) and the volume of information recalled (Kirsh, 2000), even if the information is irrelevant (Zucchelli et. ...
... Here, we considered the intrinsic environment cognitive load, related to the presence or absence of irrelevant elements (the presence or absence of people in the environment), mediated by a germane cognitive load (i.e., the participants' anxiety, either trait, state or spatial), to analyse the ability to acquire and represent spatial information. Specifically, we used a behavioural measure to study the impact of cognitive load mediated by anxiety, likely building recognition and egocentric/allocentric references, which have the main advantage of considering individual differences in information processing (Armougum et al., 2019). Indeed, the three tasks require a different cognitive load, ranging from low to high. ...
... Past work also suggests that immersion and presence have mixed influences in the observed cognitive load as influenced by the manual operations required during the experience. [41][42][43][44][45][46] Different cognitive load aspects affect learning, 47 including variations in modality between learning mediums of varying immersion. 48 Therefore, it is crucial to gauge how immersive experiences specifically for AM education can affect cognitive load to better understand the simultaneous effects on learning. ...
... 20 For both AM processes, learning through VR and REAL will yield lower cognitive load trends than will learning through CAI with identical trends observed between the two immersive mediums. 41,45 This is also expected due to the effects of the varying capabilities offered by the conditions which affect 2 MATHUR ET AL. ...
... the difficulty of navigating the learning environment and conducting self-learning actions within the environmental restrictions; specifically, due to the changes in difficulty of processing task-related information and performing manual operations 41,42,45,46 with the change in immersion. ...
Although the additive manufacturing (AM) market continues to grow, industries face barriers to AM adoptiondue to a shortage of skilled designers in the workforce that can apply AM effectively to meet this demand. Thisshortage is attributed to the high cost and infrastructural requirements of introducing high- barrier-to-entry AMprocesses such as powder bed fusion (PBF) into in-person learning environments. To meet the demands for askilled AM workforce, it is important to explore other mediums of AM education, such as computer-aidedinstruction (CAI) and virtual reality (VR), which can increase access to hands-on learning experiences forinaccessible AM processes. However, limited work compares virtual and physical AM instruction or exploreshow the differences in immersion and presence between mediums can affect the knowledge gained and themental effort exerted when learning about different AM processes. To address this gap in the literature, thisresearch evaluates the use of CAI, VR, and in-person instruction in AM process education when learning aboutmaterial extrusion (ME) and PBF. Our findings show that the differences in immersion and presence betweenCAI, VR, and in-person instruction do not have a statistically significant effect when learning about ME, but dohave a significant effect when learning about PBF. Specifically, we found that VR generally yields equivalenteffects in knowledge gain and cognitive load to in-person PBF education while offering advantages in bothmetrics over CAI learning. The findings from this work thus have significant implications for using VR as analternative to in-person training to improve designer development in process-centric AM education of typicallyhigh-barrier-to-entry AM processes.
... One metric to measure this challenge is cognitive load, which quantifies the mental effort experienced to navigate or accomplish a task or action. Past work suggests that cognitive load may be influenced by immersion depending on the manual operations performed for task completion and the range of precise motor skills required to complete different tasks [51][52][53][54][55][56]. Specifically, there is an influence on cognitive load as the difficulty of processing task-related information and performing manual operations changes between low difficulty [51,53,55] to high difficulty [51,52,54,56]. ...
... Past work suggests that cognitive load may be influenced by immersion depending on the manual operations performed for task completion and the range of precise motor skills required to complete different tasks [51][52][53][54][55][56]. Specifically, there is an influence on cognitive load as the difficulty of processing task-related information and performing manual operations changes between low difficulty [51,53,55] to high difficulty [51,52,54,56]. ...
... We believe that as the difficulty of design evaluation operations changes due to the change in immersion, the VR and REAL experiences will require significantly less mental effort and will yield lower reported cognitive load values than will the CAE experiences; however, we do not expect significant differences between the two immersive conditions [51,55]. This is expected due to the effects from the varying capabilities offered by the conditions which affect the difficulty of evaluating the features of the designs for manufacturability within the environmental restrictions. ...
The demand for additive manufacturing (AM) continues to grow as more industries look to integrate the technology into their product development. However, there is a deficit of designers skilled to innovate with this technology due to challenges in supporting designers with tools and education for their development in design for AM (DfAM). There is a need to introduce intuitive tools and knowledge to enable future designers to DfAM. Immersive virtual reality (VR) shows promise to serve as an intuitive tool for DfAM to aid designers during design evaluation. The goal of this research is to, therefore, identify the effects of immersion in design evaluation and study how evaluating designs for DfAM between mediums that vary in immersion, affects the results of the DfAM evaluation and the mental effort experienced from evaluating the designs. Our findings suggest that designers can use immersive and non-immersive mediums for DfAM evaluation without experiencing significant differences in the outcomes of the evaluation and the cognitive load experienced from conducting the evaluation. The findings from this work thus have implications for how industries can customize product and designer-talent development using modular design evaluation systems that leverage capabilities in immersive and non-immersive DfAM evaluation.
... A framework of developing immersive technology-enabled digital transformation in transportation. et al., 2020), user experience questionnaire (Huang, 2020b), technology acceptance model, fast motion sickness scale (Reinhard et al., 2019), simulator sickness questionnaire (Lisle et al., 2018), NASA-Task Load Index (Armougum et al., 2019), and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology scale (Huang, 2020a). Most of these questionnaires cover usability, physical discomfort, disorientation, oculomotor, nausea, etc. (Nickkar et al., 2019;Rangelova & Andre, 2019). ...
... Using the advanced sensors implemented in immersive applications, various psychophysiological indicators, e.g., electroencephalography signals (Bogacz et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2018), eye movements (Lisle et al., 2019), skin conductance (Ruscio et al., 2017), and heart rate, are collected to assess cognitive states. Specifically, Ruscio et al. (2017) and Armougum et al. (2019) measured the electrodermal activity in a VR environment to determine the cognitive load. ...
... In some cases, high-fidelity immersive systems can achieve results similar to those of traditional systems. Specifically, users' responses to the virtual and physical worlds exhibited identical trends with regard to the electrodermal activity and the NASA-Task Load Index (Armougum et al., 2019). Pedestrians perceived similar distances to and danger levels of approaching vehicles (Iryo-Asano et al., 2018) and made similar route-choice decisions in VR and real spaces . ...
Immersive technology is rapidly emerging as a powerful tool for enhancing the digital transformation in transportation to deal with the complexity, high cost, and uncertainty in the dynamic traffic environment. In this study, we investigate the innovations induced by immersive technologies for transportation fields. The literature (153 articles) published over the past five years were collected and analyzed systematically, pertaining to the lifecycle model of the product–service system, i.e., design, development, evaluation, and applications. The review indicated that immersive systems and scenarios have been developed and applied in various transportation areas, such as air traffic management, autonomous vehicles, railways, highways, and vehicle maintenance. Additionally, the review indicated that immersive technology brings significant benefits to the transportation field and induces significant changes in the interactions between humans and the physical world. These changes are expected to induce digital transformation in several aspects, e.g., digital testbeds for theoretical models and algorithms, immersive and safe digital environments for user studies, and digital training. Based on the review, a novel framework and conceptual lifecycle model of developing immersive technology-enabled digital transformation in transportation is proposed, a novel evaluation matrix for measuring the immersive experience level is established. The results provide essential references for practitioners to apply immersive technology and guidance regarding potential future research directions.
... Possible explanations for this higher state of arousal include that more higher cognitive load is associated with walking alone at free speed, such as way-finding and orientation, whereas these processes are not needed while following a person. Two studies by Amougum and colleagues 43,49 show increased physiological responses when using cognitive processes in real-life travel experience and also in virtual reality travel experience. Additionally, people walking alone might have felt more insecure about whether they were performing the experiment "correctly" and might have felt observed by the experimenter. ...
... Overall, the results of this study indicate that the free choice of walking speed alone does not result in a lowstress experience in crowds. Rather, it should be considered that a freely chosen walking speed involves cognitive and social processes that may lead to increased arousal states 49 . Therefore, it may be more pleasant to walk in a stream of people with an adapted walking speed and the same spatial destination than to find one's way. ...
Moving around in crowds is part of our daily lives, and we are used to the associated restriction of mobility. Nevertheless, little is known about how individuals experience these limitations. Such knowledge would, however, help to predict behavior, assess crowding, and improve measures for safety and comfort. To address this research gap, we conducted two studies on how constrained mobility affects physiological arousal as measured by mobile electrodermal activity (EDA) sensors. In study 1, we constrained walking speed by externally imposing a specific walking speed without physical proximity to another person, while, in study 2, we varied walking speed by increasing the number of people in a given area. In study 1, we confirmed previous findings showing that faster speeds led to statistically significantly higher levels of physiological arousal. The external limitations of walking speed, however, even if perceived as uncomfortable, did not increase physiological arousal. In the second study, subjects’ speed was gradually reduced by density in a single-lane experiment. This study shows that physiological arousal increased statistically significant with increasing density and decreasing speed, suggesting that people experience more stress when their movement is restricted by proximity to others. The result of study 2 is even more significant given the results of study 1: When there are no other people around, arousal increases with walking speed due to the physiology of walking. This effect reverses when the speed must be reduced due to other people. Then the arousal increases at lower speeds.
... In other words, IVR's impact on the cognitive process may be impacted by the type of learning tasks involved. This study supports Armougum et al. (2019) who evaluated the physiological, subjective and behavioral responses comprehensively and came to the conclusion that IVR does not always lead to significant changes in cognitive load [66]. According to the partial correlation analysis conducted in this study, the results also support most previous studies that germane cognitive load may vary in opposition to extraneous cognitive load. ...
... In other words, IVR's impact on the cognitive process may be impacted by the type of learning tasks involved. This study supports Armougum et al. (2019) who evaluated the physiological, subjective and behavioral responses comprehensively and came to the conclusion that IVR does not always lead to significant changes in cognitive load [66]. According to the partial correlation analysis conducted in this study, the results also support most previous studies that germane cognitive load may vary in opposition to extraneous cognitive load. ...
Immersive virtual reality (IVR) technology influences students cognitive process and affective experience according to previous research findings. Yet empirical studies that investigate the impact of immersive virtual reality (IVR) on science education in secondary schools are limited. This article reports a pilot study that has two objectives: 1) To investigate whether learning science with IVR leads to more positive learning outcomes than that with a traditional video-viewing activity; 2) To investigate whether corrective feedback produces more positive learning outcomes than explanatory feedback in IVR-mediated contexts. A randomized controlled pilot trial was designed during a school year at a secondary school in western China. Forty-seven participatory students were randomly assigned to a control group (learning with instructional videos, n = 17), an intervention group 1 (learning with IVR with corrective feedback, n = 15), and an intervention group 2 (learning with IVR with explanatory feedback, n = 15). We evaluated an array of student learning-related outcomes, including extraneous and germane cognitive load, intrinsic learning motivation, academic self-efficacy, learner satisfaction, and academic achievement. The results revealed significant difference in intrinsic learning motivation, academic self-efficacy, learner satisfaction, and academic achievement and insignificant difference in extraneous and germane cognitive load when students learned with video and IVR. In terms of the type of feedback provided in IVR-mediated environments, students who were prompted with corrective feedback and explanatory feedback showed little difference in their learning outcomes. Reasons related to the findings and limitations are discussed.
... Thanks to the immersion feature, which allows the user to experience the virtual reality environment physically, emotionally and cognitively, the user is completely involved in the virtual reality environment (Kamińska et al., 2019). Another feature is called navigation (Armougum et al., 2019). Users can perform tasks in applications by experiencing the navigation action similar to real life (Armougum et al.,2019). ...
... Another feature is called navigation (Armougum et al., 2019). Users can perform tasks in applications by experiencing the navigation action similar to real life (Armougum et al.,2019). Interaction is another feature of virtual reality (Shudayfat, 2014). ...
Digital Reality Technologies and its use in education
... Finding the physiological markers of CL is an ongoing work [2], and testing how various stimuli can impact CL is part of current scientific issues in that attempt [3], [4]. Alongside, Virtual Reality (VR) increasingly reaches learning, work, therapeutic and scientific sectors where measuring CL becomes central [5], [6]. Hence, researchers use VR to study CL, better control stimuli and study VR impacts on CL [7], [8]. ...
... With our level separation, Eye tracking seems to be the best sensor to measure CL responses, followed by ECG. But effect sizes are very small on those features, showing subtle physiological responses linked to CL. 5 INFINITY: https://h2020-infinity.eu/ In section 2.2, we presented previous works documenting possible links between visual fatigue and CL [33], [34], [32], [30], [29], [35], [31], [15], [28]. ...
Cognitive load (CL) when using Virtual Reality (VR) requires more experimental inputs, especially to determine how VR affects human psychophysiology depending on the task. Classifying humans' physiological variations in a controlled setup is essential. We randomly assigned 92 participants to three experimental conditions: control, stereoscopy, and dual-task. Participants fulfilled a rest-baseline period, a Stroop task (25 congruent, 25 incongruent words), and a NASA-TLX questionnaire. We recorded behavioral and physiological data from eye-tracking (ET), electrocardiogram (ECG), and electrodermal activity (EDA). NASA-TLX scores of control and stereoscopy were statistically different with dual-task conditions. We used NASA-TLX scores to create three classes and train a CL classifier based on physiological variations. We deployed linear models penalized with the L1 norm to select the most relevant features correlated with subjective CL levels. The ECG sensor provided the most selected features compared to EDA and ET. We compared SVM, Logistic Regression, and Gradient boosting classifier models. The Gradient boosting method with 87.23% accuracy and an 87.13% F1 score is the most performant. Future works will try to compare such an approach with stressful stimuli.
... However, the presented studies give an insight into the effects of VR on mental workload. Taking advantage of spatialization possibilities within VR seems to reduce mental workload if tasks require such cognitively related resources (Filho et al. 2018(Filho et al. , 2020Wismer et al. 2018;Broucke and Deligiannis 2019;Armougum et al. 2019). On the other side, VR seems to lead Knierim et al. (2018) Text entry on a keyboard with or without hand representation Text entry without hand representation leads to higher mental workload, and realistic hand representation leads to the lowest mental workload ...
... Gaze-based interaction shows a lower mental workload than bimanualGupta et al. (2020) N back tasks -2 levels of difficulty, with or without the help of a virtual agentMental workload is higher when tasks indications by the agent or interactions when those interactions are too far from what users are accustomed to as well(Wismer et al. 2018;Bernard et al. 2019;Baceviciute et al. 2021). Those results seem moderated by expertise within VR and the task demands(Aksoy et al. 2019;Luong et al. 2019;Armougum et al. 2019). For instance, outside of VR, when time and load on the resources are high, humans hit the maximum resource allocation capacity(McGregor et al. 2021). ...
This narrative review synthesizes and introduces 386 previous works about virtual reality-induced symptoms and effects by focusing on cybersickness, visual fatigue, muscle fatigue, acute stress, and mental overload. Usually, these VRISE are treated independently in the literature, although virtual reality is increasingly considered an option to replace PCs at the workplace, which encourages us to consider them all at once. We emphasize the context of office-like tasks in VR, gathering 57 articles meeting our inclusion/exclusion criteria. Cybersickness symptoms, influenced by fifty factors, could prevent workers from using VR. It is studied but requires more research to reach a theoretical consensus. VR can lead to more visual fatigue than other screen uses, influenced by fifteen factors, mainly due to vergence-accommodation conflicts. This side effect requires more testing and clarification on how it differs from cybersickness. VR can provoke muscle fatigue and musculoskeletal discomfort, influenced by fifteen factors, depending on tasks and interactions. VR could lead to acute stress due to technostress, task difficulty, time pressure, and public speaking. VR also potentially leads to mental overload, mainly due to task load, time pressure, and intrinsically due interaction and interface of the virtual environment. We propose a research agenda to tackle VR ergonomics and risks issues at the workplace.
... The signals were determined by applying epochs towards specified psychomotor tasks in the experiment. In the next step, the EEG signals were filtered by applying a fast Fourier transform (FFT) filter for the alpha frequency band (8-12 Hz) and beta frequency band (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). Subsequently, the alpha and beta waves were calculated and averaged over the epochs representing the recordings during the tasks. ...
... This pattern may indicate the increased task difficulty. Measuring physiological functions from EEG and heart rate was previously carried out as an evaluation for the cognitive load [28]. Previous studies interpret the alpha/beta ratio as neural efficiency to indicate a decrease in beta waves and an increase in alpha waves that are associated with decreased arousal [29], [30]. ...
Virtual reality is an alternative tool to provide a safe and competitive environment, especially for training and competitions. This study aims to evaluate the effects of modified psychomotor tasks in the virtual reality on the alpha/beta ratio, power output, heart rate, and cadence. The participants are recruited among national development cyclists from National Sport School. The environment of virtual reality was modified from the available virtual reality TACX smart trainer system. The one-way multivariate of variance (MANOVA) identified the effects of the five different levels of psychomotor task (independent variables) in virtual reality on multiple variables of physiological responses. The MANOVA results indicate a statistically significant multivariate main effect for the five levels of task difficulty in road cycling, when jointly considering on the variables of alpha/beta ratio, power output, heart rate, and cadence. The multivariate general linear model for univariate ANOVA results demonstrates a significant difference between subject on alpha/beta ratio and cadence. Significant task pairwise differences were obtained for cadence between Task 1 and both Tasks 2 and 5. The results suggest human's interaction with virtual reality, specifically during the psychomotor task during road cycling. The significant effects on the joint physiological responses ensured that evaluation of the experiment on developed task difficulty in virtual reality was practical, applicable and can be modified when required for training or assessment. The involvement of cognitive functions in response to behavioural mechanism merits further investigation and are deferred for future work.
... Measurement. An objective method to measure stress and cognitive load in individuals is to observe the change in EDA. is is a method from the field of psychology, which is already widely used in transportation research, where stress is the measurement of EDA in reality and in virtual reality [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. is method is one of several physiological indicators of arousal and shows changes in sweat secretion from the hands. Our hands have two types of sweat glands: one is used for thermoregulation of the body while the other is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, which increases the ability to act when subjective stress increases and is responsible for the fight-or-flight response [22]. is reaction is a primal instinct to ensure human survival in threatening situations and is accompanied by an increase in arousal. ...
... Research. In the field of traffic research, EDA is mainly used in studies dealing with the stress level of car drivers in different situations [16,21,25], and also in studies of people in trains and on platforms [12,13]. e results from studies on stress measurement in car drivers can be neglected here due to the lack of physical proximity to other persons. ...
Crowd density, defined as persons per square meter, is a basic measuring unit for describing and analyzing crowd dynamics and for planning pedestrian infrastructure. However, little is known about the relationship between crowd density and psychological stress and well-being. This study uses an experimental approach to determine whether higher crowd densities result in higher levels of stress in participants. In this experiment, which was a case study at the university, participants (N = 29) wait in a wooden box of 1 m2 for three minutes. Two, four, six, or eight participants are present simultaneously in the box. It is varied whether participants are supposed to remain silent or to speak with each other. Stress is conceptualized as arousal and measured as skin conductance level/electrodermal activity (EDA). A questionnaire is administered after the experiment, and the positioning of participants in the box is videotaped. The results show that the correlation between crowd density and physiological arousal is more complex than expected. The specific social situation in the box appears to play a more important role than merely the number of people waiting there. Furthermore, our data indicate a temporal trend: participants seem to adapt to the crowd density in the box. Video data analysis reveals that participants choose their positioning and orientation in the box carefully, but that this social choreography works less smoothly in higher densities. This study shows promising results for using EDA as a measurement of arousal in the context of crowd research. However, the limitations of this method and the experiments conducted are also discussed in detail to further improve this approach.
... IVR can fill this gap by collecting diverse types of time-series data simultaneously, including data on spatial location, eye movement, speech, and teachers' behavior. On the topic of the present study, human-subject research has used motion and eye tracking in IVR, for instance, in scene perception (Anderson et al., 2021), spatial navigation (Armougum et al., 2019), and instructional design (Baceviciute et al., 2022). Recently, Hasenbein et al. (2022) used eye tracking in an IVR classroom to investigate students' visual attention and learning experiences in different social settings (also see Gao et al., 2021). ...
... Familiarity with a VE mitigates errors that typically accompany increased cognitive demands (Tascón et al. 2021). Electrodermal, subjective, and behavioral measures of cognitive load as participants carried out simple tasks in RW train stations and their virtual replicas revealed an increased load in novice travelers compared to experts implying that domain expertise can ease situational cognitive load (Armougum et al. 2019). Taken together, these results suggest that simulating RW situations in VR can permit for the development of protocols that detect (and limit) WM load, encourage moderate mind wandering, and develop environmental familiarity to bolster RW safety and performance. ...
This chapter will provide a review of research into human cognition through the lens of VR-based paradigms for studying memory. Emphasis is placed on why VR increases the ecological validity of memory research and the implications of such enhancements.KeywordsVirtual realityCognitionMemoryCognitive enhancementMemory enhancementCognitive assessmentsMemory assessmentsCognitive rehabilitationMemory rehabilitationEmbodied cognitionEmbodied memoryExtended cognitionExtended memoryEnvironmental enrichment
... Non-immersive VR provides a less ecologically valid testing environment than immersive VR tests [70][71][72][73] . An immersive VR research paradigm provides the most efficient approach to assess PM in naturalistic and interactive conditions promoting a sense of presence 74,75 . By placing subjects in a multitude of daily life situations for which they can recall a wide variety of intentions, it simulates the complexity of the activities of daily life while maintaining experimental rigor, to obtain a measurement that is both sensitive, complete and specific to the functioning of the PM and its various components. ...
Mind wandering (MW) occurs when our attention spontaneously shifts from the task at hand to inner thoughts. MW is often future-oriented and may help people remember to carry out their planned actions (Prospective Memory, PM). Past-oriented MW might also play a critical role in boosting PM performance. Sixty participants learned 24 PM items and recalled them during an immersive virtual walk in a town. The items were divided into event-based– EB and time-based – TB. During the PM retention phase, participants were randomly assigned to a high or a low cognitive load condition, in order to manipulate MW frequency. Some PM items were encoded before this MW manipulation (pre-PM) and some during the virtual walk (post-PM). A high MW frequency was linked with better global PM performances. Spontaneous past-oriented MW predicted better pre-EB retrospective PM retrieval, while spontaneous future-oriented MW predicted better Pre-EB prospective PM retrieval. Voluntary future-oriented MW predicted better post-EB retrospective retrieval. We highlighted, for the first time, a differential impact of spontaneous MW content depending on the PM component (retrospective or prospective). Past‐oriented MW is crucial for (re)consolidating PM intentions, and episodic future thinking MW for the execution of PM intentions. We discuss the twofold functional role of MW, namely, to consolidate an already programmed intention and to plan future actions.
... Measuring the cognitive load experienced by participants while engaged in the design tasks was beyond the scope of this study. However, recent advancements in VR technology have enabled the integration of physiological sensors to effectively assess cognitive load during immersive VR tasks (Armougum et al., 2019;Zhang et al., 2017 This study has a defined context of the design tasks, which were intentionally kept at a first-year level to ensure completion within a relatively short time frame, ideally around 40 minutes. As shown in Table 6.1, the average duration of physical sessions was 42 minutes, while virtual sessions lasted about 61 minutes. ...
Virtual reality (VR) technology has attracted increasing interest as a medium for architectural design and experience, enabling users to interact with immersive digital environments that simulate reality in real time. This study introduces the DREAMSCAPE framework, which adopts a direct manipulation approach and emphasizes embodiment, experience, and manipulation activities during the design process. This framework aims to facilitate intuitive interactions beyond the preconceptions of traditional computer-aided design (CAD) systems. To demonstrate and establish the framework, an experimental VR design tool named Dreamscape Bricks VR has been designed and developed for this study in Unreal Engine 4, employing LEGO bricks as base components to create a high-fidelity interactive design environment. To compare the design processes between physical and virtual mediums, design experiments were conducted with a group of 14 participants consisting of architects, graduate students, and undergraduate design students. Each participant was tasked with designing a shelter and a pavilion, once using physical LEGO bricks (in situ) and once using the Dreamscape Bricks VR tool (in virtuo). The design processes in both the physical and virtual mediums were analyzed through video recordings of the participants, retrospective think-aloud protocols, and post-experiment surveys. The participants' cognitive design processes were evaluated using the Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) framework and linkographic entropy analysis, while the Embodiment-Experience-Manipulation (EEM) taxonomy was developed to conduct a deeper analysis of the design activities observed in the session recordings that could not be reflected in the retrospective self-reports. The results revealed comparably rich cognitive design processes in both mediums. However, the VR medium exhibited significantly higher levels of embodiment and experience activities. Notably, manipulating user scale within the VR environment introduced unique design opportunities, facilitating a dynamic exploration of spatial design at various scales, which is unavailable in the physical medium. Overall, this research offers guidelines for VR design tool development, focusing on more intuitive, immersive, and user-friendly experiences. The findings of the design experiments provide insights into the use of VR and metaverse environments in architectural design and education. By offering a more immersive design experience through designing while being present inside, similar to dreamscapes, VR has the potential to unlock novel creative opportunities and enhance the design process.
... This results in a higher demand to keep multiple goals in mind and more back-tracking, both features of navigation found to drive increased activity in the prefrontal cortex (Javadi et al., 2019;Patai & Spiers, 2021). An increase in the number of destinations corresponds to an increase in the 'intrinsic cognitive load' (Sweller, 2010) of the task itself, which in turn is argued to increase wayfinding difficulty (Armougum, Orriols, Gaston-Bellegarde, Joie-La Marle, & Piolino, 2019;Giannopoulos, Kiefer, Raubal, Richter, & Thrash, 2014). We also found that the larger the area of navigable spaces, the more difficult that level was to navigate. ...
Despite extensive research on navigation, it remains unclear which features of an environment predict how difficult it will be to navigate. We analysed 478,170 trajectories from 10,626 participants who navigated 45 virtual environments in the research app-based game Sea Hero Quest. Virtual environments were designed to vary in a range of properties such as their layout, number of goals, visibility (varying fog) and map condition. We calculated 58 spatial measures grouped into four families: task-specific metrics, space syntax configurational metrics, space syntax geometric metrics, and general geometric metrics. We used Lasso, a variable selection method, to select the most predictive measures of navigation difficulty. Geometric features such as entropy, area of navigable space, number of rings and closeness centrality of path networks were among the most significant factors determining the navigational difficulty. By contrast a range of other measures did not predict difficulty, including measures of intelligibility. Unsurprisingly, other task-specific features (e.g. number of destinations) and fog also predicted navigation difficulty. These findings have implications for the study of spatial behaviour in ecological settings, as well as predicting human movements in different settings, such as complex buildings and transport networks and may aid the design of more navigable environments.
... The AR HUD before and after optimization was taken as the evaluation object, and the load of the two schemes was compared using CH Scale(Cooper-Harper Scale). The CH Scale is a graphic subjective method for evaluating the difficulty of driving, classifying the difficulty of driving into ten grades [45][46][47][48][49][50]. The subjects evaluated their performance according to their experience and feeling of driving, compared with various definitions of difficulty levels. ...
This study aims to explore AR-HUD(Augmented Reality-Head up Display) visual interaction cognitive load’s prediction algorithm model and obtain the best adaptation mode of AR-HUD interface visual Interaction Design. Through immersive driving simulation experiments, a driver assistance test system was established to analyze drivers’ eye movement behavior and visual resource allocation characteristics. The driver’s attention will be less focused on the driving task and correspondingly less on elements of the driving environment, negatively affecting the recovery of cognitive resources. The focus of this study is to establish a visual cognitive load index by combining the visual intensity model and the user’s subjective cognitive load evaluation of the interface. The AR-HUD visual Interaction Design coding and visual cognitive load index are used as the input and output layers to establish a visual cognitive load prediction neural network model. The neural network model was introduced into the genetic algorithm’s fitness function. The genetic algorithm was used to obtain the optimal AR-HUD Visual Interaction Design solution in the finite solution space. Then the optimal AR-HUD visual Interaction Design was obtained. The CH Scale scale was used to assess the validation of the algorithm’s soundness.
... More future work on map-assisted navigation in the real world with higher ecological validity is needed to apply our findings to the real world. Indeed, although previous studies (Armougum et al., 2019;Kalantari et al., 2021) found that cognitive load level measured by electrodermal activity and self-reported questionnaires during navigation in virtual reality is fairly similar to cognitive load level in the real world, body-based cues (e.g., vestibular and proprioceptive information) in real-world navigation could influence wayfinding and spatial learning . In addition, environmental factors (e.g., wind) may influence blink rate. ...
The continuous assessment of pedestrians’ cognitive load during a naturalistic mobile map-assisted navigation task is challenging because of limited experimental control over stimulus presentation, human-map-interactions, and other participant responses. To overcome this challenge, the present study takes advantage of navigators’ spontaneous eye blinks during navigation to serve as event markers in continuously recorded electroencephalography (EEG) data to assess cognitive load in a mobile map-assisted navigation task. We examined if and how displaying different numbers of landmarks (3 vs. 5 vs. 7) on mobile maps along a given route would influence navigators’ cognitive load during navigation in virtual urban environments. Cognitive load was assessed by the peak amplitudes of the blink-related fronto-central N2 and parieto-occipital P3. Our results show increased parieto-occipital P3 amplitude indicating higher cognitive load in the 7-landmark condition, compared to showing 3 or 5 landmarks. Our prior research already demonstrated that participants acquire more spatial knowledge in the 5- and 7-landmark conditions compared to the 3-landmark condition. Together with the current study, we find that showing 5 landmarks, compared to 3 or 7 landmarks, improved spatial learning without overtaxing cognitive load during navigation in different urban environments. Our findings also indicate a possible cognitive load spillover effect during map-assisted wayfinding whereby cognitive load during map viewing might have affected cognitive load during goal-directed locomotion in the environment or vice versa. Our research demonstrates that users’ cognitive load and spatial learning should be considered together when designing the display of future navigation aids and that navigators’ eye blinks can serve as useful event makers to parse continuous human brain dynamics reflecting cognitive load in naturalistic settings.
... [22,26,100], biomorphic architectural design (biomorphic design refers to designs which "imitate the contours or motifs of organisms" of organic matter [99] (p. 16).) [101][102][103], window size and placement [22,98], daylight [104], navigation signage [24,105], rectilinear and curvilinear architectural form [106], and viewing location [98]. Conversely, a growing body of research outlining the stress-inducing effects of architectural features has evidenced that exposure to varied room proportions [28,29], wall curvature [29,30], lighting conditions [24], and window arrangement and size [28,94], regularly provoke stress responses in humans without their conscious perception. ...
Virtual architecture has been increasingly relied on to evaluate the health impacts of physical architecture. In this health research, exposure to virtual architecture has been used as a proxy for exposure to physical architecture. Despite the growing body of research on the health implications of physical architecture, there is a paucity of research examining the long-term health impacts of prolonged exposure to virtual architecture. In response, this paper considers: what can proxy studies, which use virtual architecture to assess the physiological response to physical architecture, tell us about the impact of extended exposure to virtual architecture on human health? The paper goes on to suggest that the applicability of these findings to virtual architecture may be limited by certain confounding variables when virtual architecture is experienced for a prolonged period of time. This paper explores the potential impact of two of these confounding variables: multisensory integration and gravitational perception. This paper advises that these confounding variables are unique to extended virtual architecture exposure and may not be captured by proxy studies that aim to capture the impact of physical architecture on human health through acute exposure to virtual architecture. While proxy studies may be suitable for measuring some aspects of the impact of both physical and virtual architecture on human health, this paper argues that they may be insufficient to fully capture the unintended consequences of extended exposure to virtual architecture on human health. Therefore, in the face of the increasing use of virtual architectural environments, the author calls for the establishment of a subfield of neuroarchitectural health research that empirically examines the physiological impacts of extended exposure to virtual architecture in its own right.
... Despite the use of EDA as an indicator of emotional engagement, recent studies suggest that electrodermal activity is not sensitive enough to changes in emotional states and may be more suitable for the measurement of cognitive engagement (Harley et al., 2015;Larmuseau et al., 2019;Lee et al., 2019;Parong & Mayer, 2021). Specifically, EDA measurements have been used as an indicator of cognitive effort and high cognitive load during arithmetic and reading complex tasks (Armougum et al., 2019;Nourbakhsh et al., 2012). The current study incorporates psycho-physiological measures of eye-tracking and EDA metrics to assess the cognitive processes involved in learning with VR. ...
Background
Virtual reality (VR) is considered a promising approach to support learning. An instructional design is essential to optimize cognitive processes. Studies show that VR has unique instructional and pedagogical requirements.
Objectives
To evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of the modality principle, which was previously validated in 2D classic multimedia, for learning with VR. The modality principle states that multimedia information presented as spoken narration is superior to on‐screen text.
Methods
A prospective experimental study with two compared conditions of instruction: VR‐based learning guided by on‐screen text (n = 34) versus spoken narration (n = 28). Students' cognitive learning experiences were captured by eye‐tracking and electrodermal activity (EDA). In addition, students' knowledge was evaluated using a pre–post knowledge test.
Results and Conclusions
Overall, there was no significant difference in knowledge retention between the participants who learned with on‐screen text compared to spoken narration. However, results from the eye‐tracking analysis showed that students who learned with the on‐screen text devoted longer visual attention toward important learning activity areas of interest, suggesting a better ability to discern between relevant and irrelevant information. Conversely, students who learned with the spoken narration expressed significantly more EDA peak responses, proposing a higher cognitive load.
Implications
This study outlines that while learning with VR was effective, the modality principle might not apply to learning with VR. Moreover, the analysis of the learning process suggests even an inverse effect, favouring the provision of instructional scaffolds as on‐screen text. Future research should evaluate this effect on long‐term knowledge retention.
... There have been several studies incorporating VR in medical or healthcare education; VR has been used to help students adapt to equipment, as well as to reduce their learning anxiety and cognitive load (Armougum et al., 2019). VR is also applied for nursing students to learn the techniques of drug administration and drug management procedures, and to accurately understand doctors' orders (Rossler et al., 2021). ...
In professional healthcare training programs, field experience after physical courses is essential for students to become professionals. However, the outbreak of the pandemic has restricted such field experience, and so students’ problem-solving awareness when facing clinical emergencies in a professional field after graduation has become a critical issue. In conventional teaching, video-based instruction with case-based learning sheets is usually adopted for healthcare training. In this teaching mode, students generally lack opportunities to experience the process of dealing with authentic cases, and hence might be unable to immediately judge and solve problems when entering the workplace. To
enhance students’ critical thinking and problem-solving awareness, the present study proposed a reflective cycle-based virtual reality (RC-VR) approach to provide a realistic environment and enable repeated practice. To examine its effectiveness, this study adopted a quasi-experimental design and applied it in a healthcare training program for risk assessment of maternal labor. The results indicated that the proposed RC-VR approach effectively enhanced students’ learning achievement, sense of presence, critical thinking, and problem-solving awareness in comparison to the conventional teaching
approach.
... New generation VR headsets are price-accessible and powerful enough to provide a high-end high-resolution stimuli presentation within realistic and interactive 3D environments, providing increased ecological validity, flexibility, sensory feedback, and performance recording [40][41][42][43]-see Gaggioli [44] for an early review of VR application. In fact, there are many successful examples of the use of VR as an assessment tool for skills related to EF, such as working memory and task-switching [45], cognitive load in navigation [46], memory [47], behavioural responses in eating disorders [48] and, more recently, cognitive function in terms of reasoning and attention switching [49]. ...
Executive functions are the key ingredient for behaviour regulation. Among them, inhibitory control is one of the main exponents of executive functions, and in the last decades, it has received a good amount of attention thanks to the development of chronometric tasks associated with paradigms that allow exploring human behaviour when the inhibitory component is needed. Among the different paradigms typically used, the Simon and flanker tasks are probably the most popular ones. These have been subjected to modifications in order to assess inhibitory control from different perspectives (e.g., in different samples or in combination with different research techniques). However, its use has been relegated to classical presentation modalities within laboratory settings. The accessibility of virtual reality (VR) technology has opened new research avenues to investigate inhibition control with a high ecological validity while retaining tightly controlled lab conditions and good measurement accuracy. We present two cutting-edge modifications of the standard Simon and flanker tasks that have been adapted to real-world settings using VR and human-like avatars as target stimuli. Our findings show that virtual reality is a credible tool for testing inhibitory control with a high degree of transferability and generalizability to the real world.
... With such unique characteristics, VR provides high ecological validity and is commonly employed in experiments that investigate navigation processes (Darken and Peterson, 2002). Indeed, studies have shown that spatial learning outcomes and cognitive load in virtual environments are fairly similar to spatial learning and cognitive load in the real world (Armougum et al., 2019;Clemenson et al., 2020;Pastel et al., 2022). ...
The frequent use of GPS-based navigation assistance is found to negatively affect spatial learning. Displaying landmarks effectively while providing wayfinding instructions on such services could facilitate spatial learning because landmarks help navigators to structure and learn an environment by serving as cognitive anchors. However, simply adding landmarks on mobile maps may tax additional cognitive resources and thus adversely affect cognitive load in mobile map users during navigation. To address this potential issue, we set up the present study experimentally to investigate how the number of landmarks (i.e., 3 vs. 5 vs. 7 landmarks), displayed on a mobile map one at a time at intersections during turn-by-turn instructions, affects spatial learning, cognitive load, and visuospatial encoding during map consultation in a virtual urban environment. Spatial learning of the environment was measured using a landmark recognition test, a route direction test, and Judgements of Relative Directions (JRDs). Cognitive load and visuospatial encoding were assessed using electroencephalography (EEG) by analyzing power modulations in distinct frequency bands as well as peak amplitudes of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results demonstrate that landmark and route learning improve when the number of landmarks shown on a mobile map increases from three to five, but that there is no further benefit in spatial learning when depicting seven landmarks. EEG analyses show that relative theta power at fronto-central leads and P3 amplitudes at parieto-occipital leads increase in the seven-landmark condition compared to the three- and five-landmark conditions, likely indicating an increase in cognitive load in the seven-landmark condition. Visuospatial encoding indicated by greater theta ERS and alpha ERD at occipital leads with a greater number of landmarks on mobile maps. We conclude that the number of landmarks visualized when following a route can support spatial learning during map-assisted navigation but with a potential boundary—visualizing landmarks on maps benefits users’ spatial learning only when the number of visualized landmarks shown does not exceed users’ cognitive capacity. These results shed more light on neuronal correlates underlying cognitive load and visuospatial encoding during spatial learning in map-assisted navigation. Our findings also contribute to the design of neuro-adaptive landmark visualization for mobile navigation aids that aim to adapt to users’ cognitive load to optimize their spatial learning in real time.
... A goal of the VR PASAT is to offer a tool for examining the impacts of cognitive and affect load on spatial navigation. Armougum and colleagues [18] found that participants tended to navigate virtual environments in a manner similar to everyday wayfinding. The prefrontal cortex likely plays a role in navigation, goal directed behavior, the formation of cognitive maps, and the evaluation of potential paths [19]. ...
Spatial navigation is an important aspect of everyday life but may be negatively impacted by both cognitive and affective load. Cognitive and affective load may be measured via autonomic arousal and increased load may lead to reduced navigational abilities. 53 college students (64.0% female;
M
age = 19.62) participated in the Virtual Reality Paced Serial Auditory Addition Task (VR-PASAT). Participants followed guides through different areas of the virtual environment (VE). In some areas participants completed the PASAT, high load, and in other areas they simply followed the guides, low load. Some participants were instructed beforehand they would perform a navigate task, increasing load. Results suggested that several psychophysiological measures including skin conductance and inter-beat intervals were impacted by increased load while others were related to the interactions between load and zone order. Awareness of the navigation task led to worse performance on the VR-PASAT, and high load decreased navigational performance. The VR-PASAT was used to implement a VE to manipulate cognitive load. This study may be useful for the creation of adaptive systems because it demonstrates that psychophysiological metrics can assess cognitive and affective load, which may impact navigation within a VE, and navigational task awareness may interact with load.
... Directly applying knowledge obtained from the social sciences to robotic engineering requires quantifying social rules and developing computational models. The development of all-in-one wireless virtual reality systems now allows us to generate well-controlled, realistic virtual environments that enable us to design and conduct experiments to precisely measure human locomotory behaviours in various social environments 34,35 . We generated laboratory scenes to quantitatively measure participants' locomotion and developed a social locomotion model that successfully predicted path selections and walking trajectories during navigation. ...
The widespread use of robots in service fields requires humanoid robots that mimic human social behaviour. Previous quantitative studies exist in human social behaviour, but engineering social robots requires translating these findings into algorithms to enable reliable and safe robot locomotion. To bridge this gap, we first quantitatively investigate the social rules that apply when people pass one another in social settings in laboratory and real-world experiments. We then developed a social locomotion model based on these observations to predict human path selections and walking trajectories in complex dynamic social scenes. The model was implemented into a socially aware navigation algorithm for a service robot. The robot navigating by the social locomotion algorithm behaved more like humans and received higher comfort ratings compared with previous social navigation algorithms tested. The model sheds new light on how to directly translate the findings of human behavioural experiments into robotic engineering.
... Mais contrairement à une approche en environnement réel, l'expérimentateur a le contrôle total sur ce qui est présenté aux participants(Rizzo et al., 2004). L'avantage principal de cette technique, comparé aux tâches de laboratoire classique, est qu'elle permet une meilleure évaluation du fonctionnement cognitif réel, car les tâches effectuées, les processus cognitifs et les corrélats physiologiques impliqués seront plus proches des conditions de la vie quotidienne(Armougum et al., 2019;Parsons et al., 2008;Schultheis et al., 2002). En effet, peut-on dire qu'apprendre une liste de mots est véritablement représentatif des processus mnésiques utilisés au quotidien ? ...
L'attention et la mémoire épisodique sont deux processus connus pour être particulièrement liés et dont les interactions ont été largement décrites dans la littérature. Le mind wandering (ou errance mentale/vagabondage de l'esprit) est un phénomène de plus en plus décrit, qui correspond aux fluctuations entre un focus attentionnel porté sur une tâche ou des stimuli externes vers des pensées et stimuli internes. Ce phénomène est extrêmement répandu, certaines études estimant qu'il occuperait jusqu'à 45% de nos activités mentales. Il serait associé à un découplage perceptif entraînant un moindre traitement des stimuli externes au profit de ceux internes. Ce traitement détérioré des informations de l'environnement impacte négativement différents processus, dont l'un des plus notables est l'encodage en mémoire épisodique. La mémoire épisodique, correspondant au rappel des informations personnellement vécues, associé à un sentiment de reviviscence et un rappel du contexte spatio-temporel, est extrêmement impactée par l'attention allouée lors de l'encodage. Or, relativement peu d'études ont testé ce lien entre mind wandering et mémoire épisodique, et les mesures ainsi que les statistiques effectuées pour lier ces deux phénomènes sont assez simplistes (corrélations globales), dans des contextes peu écologiques (paradigmes en laboratoire), et reposent sur des mesures peu précises (catégorisation des pensées en mind wandering/non mind wandering ou scores mnésiques très simples). Ainsi, compte tenu des liens très documentés entre attention et mémoire, couplé au peu d'études testant les relations entre mind wandering et mémoire épisodique, et aux mesures assez sommaires utilisées pour les étudier, le but de la présente thèse est d'étendre et de compléter les travaux déjà réalisés en investiguant la relation entre mind wandering et mémoire épisodique via différentes méthodes telles que la réalité virtuelle ou l'emploi de mesures physiologiques.
... VR technology allows for the development of three-dimensional (3D), interactive environments that resemble real-life situations, enhancing ecological validity and engagement (Bohil et al., 2011;Parsons, 2015). 3D spatial navigation is inherent to VR (Slater and Sanchez-Vives, 2016), placing additional cognitive load on the player similar to those elicited by real-life scenarios (Armougum et al., 2019). Indeed, a meta-analytic review found that VR tasks engage a greater range of cognitive domains compared to standard measures due to their increased complexity (Negut et al., 2016a). ...
Background
Aspects of cognitive function decline with age. This phenomenon is referred to as age-related cognitive decline (ARCD). Improving the understanding of these changes that occur as part of the ageing process can serve to enhance the detection of the more incapacitating neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In this study, we employ novel methods to assess ARCD by exploring the utility of the alpha3/alpha2 electroencephalogram (EEG) power ratio – a marker of AD, and a novel virtual reality (VR) functional cognition task – VStore, in discriminating between young and ageing healthy adults.
Materials and methods
Twenty young individuals aged 20–30, and 20 older adults aged 60–70 took part in the study. Participants underwent resting-state EEG and completed VStore and the Cogstate Computerised Cognitive Battery. The difference in alpha3/alpha2 power ratios between the age groups was tested using t -test. In addition, the discriminatory accuracy of VStore and Cogstate were compared using logistic regression and overlying receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Youden’s J statistic was used to establish the optimal threshold for sensitivity and specificity and model performance was evaluated with the DeLong’s test. Finally, alpha3/alpha2 power ratios were correlated with VStote and Cogstate performance.
Results
The difference in alpha3/alpha2 power ratios between age cohorts was not statistically significant. On the other hand, VStore discriminated between age groups with high sensitivity (94%) and specificity (95%) The Cogstate Pre-clinical Alzheimer’s Battery achieved a sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 60%, and Cogstate Composite Score achieved a sensitivity of 83% and specificity of 85%. The differences between the discriminatory accuracy of VStore and Cogstate models were statistically significant. Finally, high alpha3/alpha2 power ratios correlated strongly with VStore ( r = 0.73), the Cogstate Pre-clinical Alzheimer’s Battery ( r = -0.67), and Cogstate Composite Score ( r = -0.76).
Conclusion
While we did not find evidence that the alpha3/alpha2 power ratio is elevated in healthy ageing individuals compared to young individuals, we demonstrated that VStore can classify age cohorts with high accuracy, supporting its utility in the assessment of ARCD. In addition, we found preliminary evidence that elevated alpha3/alpha2 power ratio may be linked to lower cognitive performance.
... The interest of an immersive VR-application is that it can introduce new ways in which the user is stimulated and how biofeedback is delivered during training. In this regard, VR can, compared to computer screens, increase the level of immersion, user engagement, sense of embodiment (Kilteni et al., 2012) and presence, i.e., the feeling of being located in and of responding to a virtual environment as if it were real (Fuchs, 2017;Armougum et al., 2019). These properties are particularly useful to increase the intensity of attentional commitment to the biofeedback (Sanchez-Vives and Slater, 2005) and to manipulate the emotional mode (Riva et al., 2007). ...
Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback, an intervention based on the voluntary self-regulation of autonomic parameters, has been shown to affect prefrontal brain functioning and improve executive functions. The interest in using HRV biofeedback as cognitive training is typically ascribed to parasympathetic activation and optimized physiological functioning deriving from increased cardiac vagal control. However, the persistence of cognitive effects is poorly studied and their association with biofeedback-evoked autonomic changes has not yet been explored. In addition, no study has so far investigated the influence of HRV biofeedback in adults on long-term episodic memory, which is particularly concerned with self-referential encoding processing.
Methods
In the present study, a novel training system was developed integrating HRV and respiratory biofeedback into an immersive virtual reality environment to enhance training efficacy. Twenty-two young healthy adults were subjected to a blinded randomized placebo-controlled experiment, including six self-regulation training sessions, to evaluate the effect of biofeedback on autonomic and cognitive changes. Cardiac vagal control was assessed before, during, and 5 min after each training session. Executive functions, episodic memory, and the self-referential encoding effect were evaluated 1 week before and after the training program using a set of validated tasks.
Results
Linear mixed-effects models showed that HRV biofeedback greatly stimulated respiratory sinus arrhythmia during and after training. Moreover, it improved the attentional capabilities required for the identification and discrimination of stimuli ( η p 2 = 0.17), auditory short-term memory ( η p 2 = 0.23), and self-referential episodic memory recollection of positive stimuli ( η p 2 = 0.23). Episodic memory outcomes indicated that HRV biofeedback reinforced positive self-reference encoding processing. Cognitive changes were strongly dependent on the level of respiratory sinus arrhythmia evoked during self-regulation training.
Conclusion
The present study provides evidence that biofeedback moderates respiration-related cardiac vagal control, which in turn mediates improvements in several cognitive processes crucial for everyday functioning including episodic memory, that are maintained beyond the training period. The results highlight the interest in HRV biofeedback as an innovative research tool and medication-free therapeutic approach to affect autonomic and neurocognitive functioning.
Finally, a neurocognitive model of biofeedback-supported autonomic self-regulation as a scaffolding for episodic memory is proposed.
... The apparatus used in this study include Vive Pro Eye for tracking eye data [29] and Logitech 27 steering-wheel controller for controlling the virtual agent vehicle in the driving environment. An Autodesk Maya [30] and Esri CityEngine [31] were used in designing landmarks, intersections, buildings, traffic lights, routes, and cars, while a Unity3D [32] was employed to develop the game platform. The driving platform consisted of city roadways that comprised of straightaways, intersections, several turns, and landmarks (such as a convenience store, a gas station, a basketball court, a McDonald's, a post office, a Walmart and a church). ...
The study aims to determine whether landmarks and routes influence navigational efficiency. In this study, 79 subjects participated in the experiments, and we evaluated their cognitive loads based on the generated psychophysiological measures and performance features from the driving system. The virtual reality system recorded the participant’s heart rate, eye gaze, pupil size, as well as the driving performance metrics. The participants were presented with different landmarks (sufficient and insufficient landmarks) and routes (easy and difficult routes) to help them reach their respective destinations. An analytic strategy method was employed to measure neuro-cognitive load for user classifications. The participants were divided into two groups, each group having two sessions. Each session had either sufficient landmarks or insufficient landmarks. The results showed that insufficient landmarks and difficult routes elicited an increase in heart rate and pupil size, which caused the participants to commit more mistakes. It also showed that easy routes with sufficient landmarks achieved higher-navigation efficiency. These results would help improve the use of landmarks and the design of the driving routes. It could also be used to analyze traffic safety by utilizing the driver's cognition and performance.
... New generation VR headsets are price-accessible and powerful enough to provide high-resolution stimuli presentation within realistic and interactive 3D environments, providing increased ecological validity, exibility, sensory feedback, and performance recording [40,41] -see Gaggioli [42] for an early review of VR application. In fact, there are many successful examples of the use of VR as an assessment tool for skills related to EF, such as working memory and task-switching [43] , cognitive load in navigation [44] , memory [45] , behavioural responses in eating disorders [46] and, more recently, cognitive function in terms of reasoning and attention switching [47] . ...
Executive functions have become a popular research topic since the beginning of the century. Their central role in our daily routines makes them the most representative form of behaviour regulation. Even though there is no general agreement about how they can be classified, there is common consensus that cognitive scientists need to understand their nature and how they interact to modulate human behaviour. Inhibitory control is one of the main exponents of executive functions, and the last decades have witnessed an exponential increase of studies on the inhibitory component thanks to the development of chronometric tasks associated with paradigms that allowed to explore how humans behave in contexts in which resistance to interference is needed. Among the different paradigms typically used, the Simon and flanker tasks are probably the most popular ones. Since their creation, many variants of these tasks have been developed in order to assess inhibitory control from different perspectives (e.g., in different samples or in combination with different research techniques). However, the use of these tasks has been typically governed by classical presentation modalities within laboratory settings. The accessibility of virtual reality technology has opened new research avenues to explore inhibitory skills using adaptations of classic paradigms such as the Simon and the flanker tasks to real-life contexts or settings. Thanks to virtual reality, research on executive function assessment can be undertaken with increased ecological validity, still ensuring laboratory-like controlled conditions and high precision in the measurements. Relying on this technology, here we present two state-of-the-art adaptations of the classical Simon and flanker tasks reinterpreted and adapted to real-world circumstances. Our results show that virtual reality is a reliable tool to assess inhibitory control that could provide valid experimental data with a high level of real-world transferability and generalizability.
... Similarly, Pouliquen-Lardy et al. (2016) used VR to measure remote collaboration, task distribution, and spatial processing. Moreover, the studies by Armougum et al. (2019) and Chao et al. (2017) looked at CL inside VR environments. They contrasted VR and traditional training methods over training performance and mental workload, respectively. ...
... Findings in the research of cognitive load has had many implications for the design of today's information systems, as poorly designed user interfaces might result in user's confusion and cognitive overload [2]. With the widespread availability of consumer hardware for Virtual Reality (VR) and the resulting developments for immersive training and educational simulations, measuring cognitive load has also become a relevant area for VR [5,6]. ...
Cognitive load is an important concept to understand people's cognitive processing performance of information. To assess cognitive load, several methods can be applied. For performance-based measure, Reaction times (RT) tasks can be used. Compared to physiological measures such as electroencephalography, RT tasks can be easily implemented and can be used as an alternative to subjective questionnaires, like NASA-TLX. In this paper we present two evaluation studies of a vibrotactile wearable for RT tasks. The first study evaluates its potential for Choice Reaction Time (CRT) tasks to compare real and virtual settings, the second study uses a simple Reaction Time (RT) task to evaluate cognitive effort on two different VR locomotion techniques while working on tasks in VR. The system is based on a vibrotactile wearable for the cues/stimuli and is suited for VR settings as well as real environments. We argue that such systems allow to compare cognitive performance between real and virtual tasks and discuss the limitation of the system.
... VR technology can create immersive and realistic interactive environments for behavioral learning. Besides, VR technology provides individualized treatment, accurate control of complex stimuli, and a structured and safe learning environment [36,37]. Therefore, we employed a VR-based driving system to investigate the effects of landmarks and routes on navigational efficiency and transfer of learning. ...
Investigating whether landmarks and routes affect navigational efficiency and learning transfer in traffic is essential. In this study, a virtual reality-based driving system was employed to determine the effects of landmarks and routes on human neurocognitive behavior. The participants made four (4) journeys to predetermined destinations. They were provided with different landmarks and routes to aid in reaching their respective destinations. We considered two (2) groups and conducted two (2) sessions per group in this study. Each group had sufficient and insufficient landmarks. We hypothesized that using insufficient landmarks would elicit an increase in psychophysiological activation, such as increased heart rate, eye gaze, and pupil size, which would cause participants to make more errors. Moreover, easy and difficult routes elicited different cognitive workloads. Thus, a high cognitive load would negatively affect the participants when trying to apply the knowledge acquired at the beginning of the exercise. In addition, the navigational efficiency of routes with sufficient landmarks was remarkably higher than that of routes with insufficient landmarks. We evaluated the effects of landmarks and routes by assessing the recorded information of the drivers' pupil size, heart rate, and driving performance data. An analytical strategy, several machine learning algorithms, and data fusion methods have been employed to measure the neurocognitive load of each participant for user classification. The results showed that insufficient landmarks and difficult routes increased pupil size and heart rate, which caused the participants to make more errors. The results also indicated that easy routes with sufficient landmarks were deemed more efficient for navigation, where users' cognitive loads were much lower than those with insufficient landmarks and difficult routes. The high cognitive workload hindered the participants when trying to apply the knowledge acquired at the beginning of the exercise. Meanwhile, the data fusion method achieved higher accuracy than the other classification methods. The results of this study will help improve the use of landmarks and design of driving routes, as well as paving the way to analyze traffic safety using the drivers' cogni-tion and performance data.
... The use of VR technology involves individuals generating self-experience, and having bodily immersion and sensation experiences (Armougum et al., 2019;Murray & Gordon, 2001). Additionally, in most studies, cognitive load has been investigated in static contexts, for example, when using a computer or smartphone (Hochberg et al., 2018) to perform cognitive tasks. ...
Attentional Control theory indicates that concentration is considered an important variable that contributes to learning. There are some devices for players to practice their concentration, but there are few virtual reality (VR) designs which can increase the level of difficulty for students to discipline their mental concentration with incongruent hands-on movement. To address this gap, a VR system named Tracking Fun was designed, which requires hand-eye coordination to move a ball to a target hole. To explore the effect of playing Tracking-fun on players’ concentration performance, the study explored the relationship among entity beliefs of concentration ability (EBCA), intrinsic cognitive load (ICL), failure attribution of VR operation (FAVRO), flow experience, and gameplay performance. Students from a skills-based senior high school took part in this experimental research, and 259 valid questionnaires were returned. The research results showed that: EBCA can positively predict cognitive load; EBCA can positively predict FAVRO; ICL and flow have a negative correlation; FAVRO can negatively predict flow experience when interacting with VR; and flow can negatively predict gameplay performance. Based on the results, enriching the opportunity and difficulty level of Tracking-fun can enhance players’ concentration. Follow-up research suggestions are proposed.
L’Institut de Psychologie de l’Université Paris Cité est un acteur majeur de la formation des psychologues en France, soutenu par des recherches de haut niveau. L’Institut a mis à profit les possibilités offertes par les technologies numériques pour innover dans la recherche et l’enseignement, mettant en place une nouvelle plateforme technologique pour aider à développer des applications de la réalité virtuelle dans divers domaines de la psychologie afin de renforcer la recherche fondamentale et appliquée. Cette plateforme offre également une formation initiale et continue dans la conception d’environnements virtuels utilisés dans la recherche ou la pratique clinique. La plateforme RV-Psy s’est engagée avec l’équipe de direction dans un projet d’innovation pédagogique visant à améliorer la formation des étudiants de licence à l’examen psychologique par la simulation d’entretiens cliniques en réalité virtuelle. Nous donnons un aperçu de l’avancement du projet et des perspectives dans ce domaine de formation.
Le laboratoire Mémoire Cerveau et Cognition est spécialisé dans l’étude neurocognitive de la mémoire humaine et les distorsions mnésiques aux différents âges de la vie avec des approches combinées de psychologie expérimentale, de neuropsychologie et de neurosciences cognitives. La mémoire épisodique dans ses formes multiples, rétrospectives et prospectives, est au cœur des recherches actuellement réalisées et tout particulièrement la mémoire autobiographique qui fonde notre sentiment d’identité personnelle, de continuité temporelle et la conscience de soi. Les membres du laboratoire développent une approche écologique novatrice qui utilise les technologies de la réalité virtuelle pour évaluer la mémoire dans une approche plus incarnée et proposer de nouvelles méthodes de prises en charge et d’optimisation. Cet article illustre brièvement l’évolution de nos travaux dans le domaine de la mémoire épisodique et autobiographique et les approches innovantes mises en place au sein du laboratoire.
This work presents a new framework for studying the emotional and physical conditions of workers in Virtual Reality (VR) environments. The framework collects data from simulated virtual environments and helps develop adaptable models for different contexts. It introduces an architecture based on immersion in virtual reality (IVR), focusing on sensory perception, natural actions, narrative engagement, and social features. The author proposes categories to assess the impact of each concept on IVR applications, supported by an artificial intelligence module for data analysis and feedback. The framework also enables the collection of physiological parameters using VR glasses with storage and processing capacity. This facilitates control, performance, and integration with IoT contexts. The primary objective is to identify behavioral patterns for decision-making and employee emotional health management.
Background and objective:
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a serious threat to the physical health and quality of life of the elderly, as well as a heavy burden on families and society. The current computer-based rehabilitation training ignores the role of emotions in cognitive impairment rehabilitation, making it difficult to improve patient engagement and efficiency. To address this, a psychodynamics-based cognitive rehabilitation training method with personalized emotional arousal elements was proposed using virtual reality technology.
Methods:
Our proposed method contains four training tasks, which cover (audiovisual memory, attention & processing, working memory, abstract & Logic, spatial pathfinding) and six positive emotional arousal elements (sensory feedback, achievement system, multiplayer interaction, score comparison, relaxation scenarios, and peaceful videos) to motivate participants to persist during cognitive training continuously and maintain a positive mental attitude toward training. The six emotional arousal elements were divided into two personalized combinations-full combination and half combination-based on the results of the pre-assessment and were dynamically distributed throughout both the training tasks and post-training.
Results:
Fifteen participants with MCI were recruited to complete the proposed experiment and validate the effectiveness of the system. They were first asked to complete two assessments (e.g., the big five scale and the positive and negative affect scale) to investigate their personalities. Based on the results of the assessments, they were provided with a full or half combination of arousal elements in the training tasks and post-training. Finally, the acceptability of the system and task experience were assessed using questionnaires. Notably, there was a significant increase in training scores for participants who completed a six-week training period (66.7%, 33.4%, and 25.0% for attention and processing, working memory, and abstraction and logic, respectively). The results show that positive emotional arousal had a positive effect on the MCI participants. The training tasks and arousal elements can improve cognitive function and enhance the confidence and engagement of participants. There were no significant differences in cognitive domain training scores between the two groups.
Conclusions:
This personalized cognitive training system has the potential to serve as a convenient solution for complementary treatment of MCI.
Virtual Reality (VR) can induce side effects known as Virtual Reality Induced Symptoms and Effects (VRISE). To address this concern, we identify a literature-based listing of these factors thought to influence VRISE with a focus on office work use. Using those, we recommend guidelines for VRISE amelioration intended for virtual environment creators and users. We identify five VRISE risks, focusing on short-term symptoms with their short-term effects. Three overall factor categories are considered: individual, hardware, and software. Over ninety factors may influence VRISE frequency and severity. We identify guidelines for each factor to help reduce VR side effects. To better reflect our confidence in those guidelines, we graded each with a Level of Evidence rating. Common factors occasionally influence different forms of VRISE. This can lead to confusion in the literature. General guidelines for using VR at work involve worker adaptation, such as limiting immersion times to between twenty and thirty minutes. These regimens involve taking regular breaks. Extra care is required for workers with special needs, neurodiversity, and gerontechnological concerns. In addition to following our guidelines, stakeholders should be aware that current Head-Mounted Displays and virtual environments can continue to induce VRISE. While no single existing method fully alleviates VRISE, workers' health and safety must be monitored and safeguarded when VR is used at work.
This chapter looks into the future of education to see if there are chances of virtual reality (VR) technologies becoming a driving force in future teaching and learning. The chapter provides an explanation of education with focus on the purposes and ends they are designed to achieve. The chapter examines how some institutions are currently using VR technologies and the impact they are having on institutional learning, efficiency, and cost. The authors use these discussions to project that education could have a very productive future with the use of VR technologies. They make this argument while staying conscious of cost as a factor that could impede the speedy and effective adoption of this technology unless ways are found to navigate these factors.
This thesis has been conducted to analyze the cognitive load of train travelers in one of the most visited train station in Paris, Île-de-France: Saint-Michel Notre Dame. In order to anticipate the risk associated to overcrowding and security hazard in this megacity, we investigated how travelers' expertise modulates cognitive load during information processing. Through four experiments, we investigated variations in travelers' cognitive load in an ecological context, in both field and a validated virtual experiment. Cognitive load was assessed through physiological, subjective and behavioral aspects. Learning effects associated to cognitive load such as split-attention, instructional design, modality effect, redundancy effect and expertise reversal effect, were also discussed in our empirical studies for optimal cognitive load evaluation in train travelers. Travelers¿ cognitive load was evaluated through different environmental vagary levels, ranging from no vagary to successive vagaries situations. Our empirical studies allowed us to put in light variations in cognitive load between the different levels of expertise in travelers, with a higher cognitive load in novice or occasional travelers than in expert or regular travelers, in no vagary context. An expertise reversal effect, where experts expressed a higher cognitive load than novices, arises with increase in environmental vagary level. Novice travelers, however, showed no significant difference in cognitive load level, with varying environmental vagary level. We discussed how reducing the gap between experts and novices could encourage expert travelers to be more aware of their surrounding environment in moment of no vagary as well as non-optimal situations, to reduce the risk of abrupt rise in cognitive load. This thesis represents a mix between fundamental and applied research, to unravel the mechanism underlying cognitive load variations in a real-life context.
In recent years, US Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have faced a massive shortage of EMS workers. The sudden outbreak of the pandemic has further exacerbated this issue by limiting in-person training. Additionally, current training modalities for first responders are costly and time-consuming, further limiting training opportunities. To overcome these challenges, this paper compares the efficacy of augmented reality (AR), an emerging training modality, and video-based training to address many of these issues without compromising the quality of the training with reduced instructor interaction. We examined performance, subjective, and physiological data to better understand workload, user engagement, and cognitive load distribution of 51 participants during training. The statistical analysis of physiological data and subjective responses indicate that performance during AR and video-based training and retention phases depended on gender perception of workload and cognitive load (intrinsic, germane, extraneous). However, user engagement was higher in AR-based training for both genders during training.
The photo-based immersive virtual environment (IVE) has become an increasingly popular method to deliver spatial experiences because it provides users with a high sense of presence and interactivity. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence on the degree of realism of spatial experiences. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the reality of photo-based IVE spatial experience. We recruited 74 participants and conducted surveys to compare a photo-based IVE, conventional methods, and actual visit in terms of the spatial information and appraisal of the space. The results indicated that the users’ impression of the space in the photo-based IVE was similar to that in the real space because of a high sense of presence, but they less accurately recall the specific physical characteristics of the space owing to high cognitive load. The findings of the present study contribute to the understanding of spatial experiences via photo-based IVE.
The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of virtual reality (VR) application on creative performance and immersion, evaluated through electroencephalography brain wave data to achieve accurate and robust results. In this study, 72 middle school teachers were recruited as participants, and a non‐randomized control‐group pre‐test–post‐test design was employed. The experimental group received VR‐based design instruction, and the control group received lecture‐based design training. Our results revealed that VR significantly affects immersion, especially with regard to attention. Additionally, VR had a positive effect on the feasibility of the creative process, although its effects on variety and novelty were inconclusive. VR was significantly correlated with theta, beta, and gamma brain wave activity. VR also increased attention‐related and meditation‐related brain wave activity and desynchronized alpha waves.
Practitioner notes
What is already known about this topic VR is used in many areas.
VR in education is getting more important day after day.
What this paper adds VR significantly affects immersion, especially with regard to attention.
VR had a positive effect on the feasibility of the creative process, although its effects on variety and novelty were inconclusive.
VR was significantly correlated with theta, beta, and gamma brain wave activity.
VR also increased attention‐related and meditation‐related brain wave activity and desynchronized alpha waves.
Implications for practice and/or policy User lack of familiarity with VR may also have influenced the results; more VR learning materials should be provided for learners.
In addition to using a larger sample, future studies should focus on creative novelty when developing VR content to improve creative processes and outcomes.
Familiarizing learners with the use of VR could effectively reduce the cognitive load, as well as contribute to the stimulation of creative brain waves.
Detecting termites in wood structures is complex, and the most available detection methods are potentially damaging to property. The goal of this study is to develop a proof-of-concept termite detection system for an indoor environment. Thermal imaging and microwave radar sensors are used to detect the presence of termites, while a mobile application is used to view the termites’ status using a heat map and a wave pattern. Testing is carried out based on the reliability and efficiency of the two methods for detecting termites. The results show that the thermal camera can detect hot and cold spots on the wooden surface up to 15 cm, while the microwave radar sensor can detect termite movement inside the wood up to 3 cm.
Rendering animations into 2D or 3D involves sequential proceeding of inputs. This causes operational bottleneck, resulting in expensive and lengthy inefficient processes. In this paper, an efficient Blender-based software for creating 3D animations from related sources is proposed. It introduces a horizontally scaled and concurrent rendering of multiple Blender-based projects. It runs in three modes that combine to accomplish its task: Master, Client, and Slave. A single Master instance exposes a web GUI to the user, maintains the master list of render job states, and controls Slave instances. Client instances are launched on demand to provide users with a GUI to submit render jobs to the Master instance. Slave instances run on rendering machines and will, in turn, launch subprocesses of Blender to render individual frames when instructed to by the Master instance. Test implementation of our solutions indicate improvements over vertical scaling (increasing the power of a single rendering machine) and greatly reduces the overall time taken to render a complex animation project.
Agro-allied supply chain management (ASCM) presents unique issues ranging from dependence on climate, the engagement of many actors, to the bulk of the personnel’s lack of literacy, all of which need the use of communication and information technologies (IT). The purpose of the research is to present technologies centered on the Internet of things (IoT) and describe their applicability within the agro-allied industrial supply chain of a developing nation like Nigeria. The study recognized IoT-developed technologies in the framework of ASCM based on literature. In line with the study findings, the application of IoT in the food and agro-allied sector in Nigeria may help boost the growth of the agro-allied supply chain through significant reduction of waste as well as serving users’ needs in a long-term manner. In a developing country like Nigeria, IoT-based technology can integrate multiple ASCM tasks in an industrial setting.
L'un des principaux objectifs de la neuropsychologie est de trouver des méthodes objectives et efficaces pour évaluer, comprendre les difficultés fonctionnelles et cognitives rencontrées dans la vie quotidienne, les prédire et les rééduquer. Cependant, la plupart des outils classiques présentent une validité écologique limitée. Augmenter cette validité est un enjeu important pour les pratiques futures et cela d'autant plus pour la mémoire épisodique dont l'atteinte réduit considérablement l'autonomie et le sentiment d'identité. La réalité virtuelle gagne en popularité au sein de la communauté des neuropsychologues, car elle permet de créer des situations proches de la vie quotidienne tout en conservant un contrôle expérimental, lequel est parfois difficile à assurer dans un milieu naturel. L'objectif de ce chapitre est de présenter les outils développés en réalité virtuelle pour l'évaluation et l'entraînement de la mémoire épisodique, et réaliser une synthèse des apports bénéfiques, des limites et perspectives. Le chapitre retrace aussi la conception et les développements d'un nouveau paradigme écologique ciblant la mémoire épisodique événementielle dans ses composantes objectives - QUOI-OU-QUAND-DETAILS - et subjectives - sentiments de recollection et conscience de soi -, et il présente des applications tant expérimentales que cliniques chez des personnes neurotypiques aux différents âges de la vie et chez des patients cérébrolésés.
Memory is one of the most important cognitive functions in a person’s life as it is essential for recalling personal memories and performing many everyday tasks. Although a huge number of studies have been conducted in the field, only a few of them investigated memory in realistic situations, due to methodological issues. The various tools that have been developed using virtual environments have gained popularity in cognitive psychology and neuropsychology because they enable to create naturalistic and controlled situations, and are thus particularly adapted to the study of episodic memory, for which an ecological evaluation is of prime importance. Episodic memory is the conscious recollection of personal events combined with their phenomenological and spatiotemporal encoding contexts. Using an original paradigm in a virtual environment, the objective of the present study was to characterize the construction of episodic memories. While the concept of working memory has become central in the understanding of a wide range of cognitive functions, its role in the integration of episodic memories has seldom been assessed in an ecological context. This experiment aimed at filling this gap by studying how episodic memory is affected by concurrent tasks requiring working memory resources in a realistic situation. Participants navigated in a virtual town and had to memorize as many elements in their spatiotemporal context as they could. During learning, participants had either to perform a concurrent task meant to prevent maintenance through the phonological loop, or a task aimed at preventing maintenance through the visuospatial sketchpad, or no concurrent task. Episodic memory was assessed in a recall test performed after learning through various scores measuring the what, where and when of the memories. Results showed that, compared to the control condition with no concurrent task, the prevention of maintenance through the phonological loop had a deleterious impact only on the encoding of central elements. By contrast, the prevention of visuo-spatial maintenance interfered both with the encoding of the temporal context and with the binding. These results suggest that the integration of realistic episodic memories relies on different working memory processes that depend on the nature of the traces.
Episodic memory (EM) is defined as a long-term memory system that stores information that can be retrieved along with details of the context of the original events (binding). Several studies have shown that manipulation of attention during encoding can impact subsequent memory performance. An influential model of attention distinguishes between three partially independent attentional networks: the alerting, the orienting and the executive or conflict resolution component. To date, the impact of the engagement of these sub-systems during encoding on item and relational context binding has not been investigated. Here, we developed a new task combining the Attentional Network Test and an incidental episodic memory encoding task to study this issue. We reported that when the alerting network was not solicited, resolving conflict hindered item encoding. Moreover, resolving conflict, independently of the cueing condition, had a negative impact on context binding. These novel findings could have a potential impact in the understanding EM formation, and memory disorders in different populations, including healthy elderly people.
One of the frequent questions by users of the mixed model function lmer of the lme4 package has been: How can I get p values for the F and t tests for objects returned by lmer? The lmerTest package extends the 'lmerMod' class of the lme4 package, by overloading the anova and summary functions by providing p values for tests for fixed effects. We have implemented the Satterthwaite's method for approximating degrees of freedom for the t and F tests. We have also implemented the construction of Type I - III ANOVA tables. Furthermore, one may also obtain the summary as well as the anova table using the Kenward-Roger approximation for denominator degrees of freedom (based on the KRmodcomp function from the pbkrtest package). Some other convenient mixed model analysis tools such as a step method, that performs backward elimination of nonsignificant effects - both random and fixed, calculation of population means and multiple comparison tests together with plot facilities are provided by the package as well.
Least-squares means are predictions from a linear model, or averages thereof. They are useful in the analysis of experimental data for summarizing the effects of factors, and for testing linear contrasts among predictions. The lsmeans package (Lenth 2016) provides a simple way of obtaining least-squares means and contrasts thereof. It supports many models fitted by R (R Core Team 2015) core packages (as well as a few key contributed ones) that fit linear or mixed models, and provides a simple way of extending it to cover more model classes.
Drawing involves frequent shifts of gaze between the original and the drawing and visual memory helps compare the original object and the drawing across these gaze shifts while creating and correcting the drawing. It remains unclear whether this memory encodes all of the object or only the features around the current drawing position and whether both the original and the copy are equally well represented. To address these questions, we designed a ''drawing'' experiment coupled with a change detection task. A polygon was displayed on one screen and participants had to copy it on another, with the original and the drawing presented in alternation. At unpredictable moments during the copying process, modifications were made on the drawing and the original figure (while they were not in view). Participants had to correct their drawing every time they perceived a change so that their drawing always matched the current original figure. Our results show a better memory representation of the original figure than of the drawing, with locations relevant to the current production most accurately represented. Critically, experts showed better memory for both the original and the drawing than did novices, suggesting that experts have specialized advantages for encoding visual shapes.
Cancer has been characterized as a heterogeneous disease consisting of many different subtypes. The early diagnosis and prognosis of a cancer type have become a necessity in cancer research, as it can facilitate the subsequent clinical management of patients. The importance of classifying cancer patients into high or low risk groups has led many research teams, from the biomedical and the bioinformatics field, to study the application of machine learning (ML) methods. Therefore, these techniques have been utilized as an aim to model the progression and treatment of cancerous conditions. In addition, the ability of ML tools to detect key features from complex datasets reveals their importance. A variety of these techniques, including Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Bayesian Networks (BNs), Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and Decision Trees (DTs) have been widely applied in cancer research for the development of predictive models, resulting in effective and accurate decision making. Even though it is evident that the use of ML methods can improve our understanding of cancer progression, an appropriate level of validation is needed in order for these methods to be considered in the everyday clinical practice. In this work, we present a review of recent ML approaches employed in the modeling of cancer progression. The predictive models discussed here are based on various supervised ML techniques as well as on different input features and data samples. Given the growing trend on the application of ML methods in cancer research, we present here the most recent publications that employ these techniques as an aim to model cancer risk or patient outcomes.
None of the previous studies on aging have tested the influence of action with respect to the degree of interaction with the environment (active or passive navigation) and the source of itinerary choice (self or externally imposed), on episodic memory encoding. The aim of this pilot study was to explore the influence of these factors on feature binding (the association between what, where and when) in episodic memory and on the subjective sense of remembering. Navigation in a virtual city was performed by 64 young and 64 older adults in one of four modes of exploration: (1) passive condition where participants were immersed as passengers of a virtual car (no interaction, no itinerary control), (2) itinerary control (the subject chose the itinerary, but did not drive the car), (3) low or (4) high navigation control (the subject just moved the car on rails or drove the car with a steering wheel and a gas pedal on a fixed itinerary, respectively). The task was to memorize as many events encountered in the virtual environment as possible along with their factual (what), spatial (where), and temporal (when) details, and then to perform immediate and delayed memory tests. An age related decline was evidenced for immediate and delayed feature binding. Compared to passive and high navigation conditions, and regardless of age groups, feature binding was enhanced by low navigation and itinerary control conditions. The subjective sense of remembering was boosted by the itinerary control in older adults. Memory performance following high navigation was specifically linked to variability in executive functions. The present findings suggest that the decision of the itinerary is beneficial to boost episodic memory in aging, although it does not eliminate age-related deficits. Active navigation can also enhance episodic memory when it is not too demanding for subjects' cognitive resources.
Mental workload (MW)-based adaptive system has been found to be an effective approach to enhance the performance of human-machine interaction and to avoid human error caused by overload. However, MW estimated from the spontaneously generated electroencephalogram (EEG) was found to be task-specific. In existing studies, EEG-based MW classifier can work well under the task used to train the classifier (within-task) but crash completely when used to classify MW of a task that is similar to but not included in the training data (cross-task). The possible causes have been considered to be the task-specific EEG patterns, the mismatched workload across tasks and the temporal effects. In this study, cross-task performance-based feature selection (FS) and regression model were tried to cope with these challenges, in order to make EEG-based MW estimator trained on working memory tasks work well under a complex simulated multi-attribute task (MAT). The results show that the performance of regression model trained on working memory task and tested on multi-attribute task with the feature subset picked-out were significantly improved (correlation coefficient (COR): 0.740 ± 0.147 and 0.598 ± 0.161 for FS data and validation data respectively) when compared to the performance in the same condition with all features (chance level). It can be inferred that there do exist some MW-related EEG features can be picked out and there are something in common between MW of a relatively simple task and a complex task. This study provides a promising approach to measure MW across tasks.
As important as navigation is to human performance in virtual worlds, it is an often overlooked problem in the design process. This article reports an experiment intended to show that real‐world wayfinding and environmental design principles are effective in designing virtual worlds that support skilled wayfinding behavior. The study measures participant performance on a complex searching task in a number of virtual worlds with differing environmental cues. The worlds are augmented with either a radial grid, a map, or both a grid and a map. The control condition provided no additional navigational cues. The results showed that navigational performance was superior under both map treatments as compared to the control and grid conditions. The grid was, however, shown to provide superior directional information as compared to the other conditions. The control condition provided the worst performance, with participants often becoming disoriented and experiencing extreme difficulty completing the tasks.
Cognitive load theory (CLT) originated in the 1980s and underwent substantial development and expansion in the 1990s by researchers from around the globe. As the articles in this special issue demonstrate, it is a major theory providing a framework for investigations into cognitive processes and instructional design. By simultaneously considering the structure of information and the cognitive architecture that allows learners to process that information, cognitive load theorists have been able to generate a unique variety of new and sometimes counterintuitive instructional designs and procedures.
This paper identifies several serious problems with the widespread use of ANOVAs for the analysis of categorical outcome variables such as forced-choice variables, question-answer accuracy, choice in production (e.g. in syntactic priming research), et cetera. I show that even after applying the arcsine-square-root transformation to proportional data, ANOVA can yield spurious results. I discuss conceptual issues underlying these problems and alternatives provided by modern statistics. Specifically, I introduce ordinary logit models (i.e. logistic regression), which are well-suited to analyze categorical data and offer many advantages over ANOVA. Unfortunately, ordinary logit models do not include random effect modeling. To address this issue, I describe mixed logit models (Generalized Linear Mixed Models for binomially distributed outcomes, Breslow & Clayton, 1993), which combine the advantages of ordinary logit models with the ability to account for random subject and item effects in one step of analysis. Throughout the paper, I use a psycholinguistic data set to compare the different statistical methods.
Réflexions sur la surcharge cognitive.
Cet article aborde le problème de la saturation cognitive tel que les individus le vivent au quotidien sur leur lieu de travail. Il examine d'abord une série d'hypothèses sur les causes de ce phénomène : trop d'information en "push" et en "pull", le multi-tâche et les interruptions, un environnement de travail mal conçu. En passant, il pose une série de questions : la mesure de la qualité de l'information, la forme de sa fonction d'utilité, la pertinence de différentes stratégies de gestion des flux. Ensuite, il cherche à bâtir un cadre d'analyse pour améliorer la conception des environnements de travail. Il enrichit la formalisation de Simon et Newell sur l'espace de la tâche, en montrant que les stratégies cognitives du sujet peuvent l'amener à des détours qui, sans être des tâches proprement dites, sont des reformulations du problème qui facilitent sa résolution. Cette avancée permet de poser plus clairement la question de la charge cognitive et des coûts cognitifs qui découlent de l'environnement. L'article distingue notamment la charge de calcul, la mémoire, la concentration, le stress. Il montre sur quelques exemples simples comment un réaménagement de l'environnement peut abaisser la structure de coûts pour l'opérateur, et lui procurer une aide dans son travail cognitif .
The intent of this paper is to provide the reader with an overview of the mental workload literature. It will focus on other state-of-the-art surveys with reference to some specific reports of the practical application of mental workload measurement. The surveys will be limited to those in English. Manzey reportedly provides a review of psycho-physiological methods in German; a comparable, recent review in English was not found although a NATO RTO report (Wilson 2004, pp. 64-65 and Chapter 8) provides some guidance in this respect. Appendix 1 lists a search for references to workload measurement techniques using the GOOGLE search engine. The intent is to give the reader an appreciation of where work has been focused, or at least as reported on the Internet.
Studied the differential effect on training performance, transfer performance, and cognitive load for 3 computer-based training strategies. The conventional, worked, and completion conditions emphasized, respectively, the solving of conventional problems, the study of worked-out problems, and the completion of partly worked-out problems. The relation between practice-problem type and transfer was expected to be mediated by cognitive load. It was hypothesized that practice with conventional problems would require more time and more effort during training and result in lower and more effort-demanding transfer performance than practice with worked-out or partly worked-out problems. With the exception of time and effort during training, the results supported the hypothesis. The completion strategy and, in particular, the worked strategy proved to be superior to the conventional strategy for attaining transfer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Studied 4 computer-based training strategies for geometrical problem solving in the domain of computer numerically controlled machinery programming with regard to their effects on training performance, transfer performance, and cognitive load. A low- and a high-variability conventional condition, in which conventional practice problems had to be solved (followed by worked examples), were compared with a low- and a high-variability worked condition, in which worked examples had to be studied. Results showed that students who studied worked examples gained most from high-variability examples, invested less time and mental effort in practice, and attained better and less effort-demanding transfer performance than students who first attempted to solve conventional problems and then studied work examples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A range of empirical findings suggest that active learning is important for memory. However, few studies have focused on the mechanisms underlying this enactment effect in episodic memory using complex environments. Research using virtual reality has yielded inconsistent results. We postulated that the effect of action depends on the degree of interaction with the environment and freedom in the planning of an itinerary. To test these hypotheses, we disentangled the interaction and planning components of action to investigate whether each enhances factual and spatial memory. Seventy-two participants (36 male and 36 female) explored a virtual town in one of three experimental conditions: (a) a passive condition where participants were immersed as passenger of the car (no interaction, no planning); (b) a planning-only condition (the subject chose the itinerary but did not drive the car); (c) an interaction-only condition (the subject drove the car but the itinerary was fixed). We found that itinerary choice and motor control both enhanced spatial memory, while factual memory was impaired by online motor control. The role of action in memory is discussed.
Social phobia is one of the most frequent mental disorders and is accessible to two forms of scientifically validated treatments: anti-depressant drugs and cognitive behavior therapies (CBT). In this last case, graded exposure to feared social situations is one of the fundamental therapeutic ingredients. Virtual reality technologies are an interesting alternative to the standard exposure in social phobia, especially since studies have shown its usefulness for the fear of public speaking. This paper reports a preliminary study in which a virtual reality therapy (VRT), based on exposure to virtual environments, was used to treat social phobia. The sample consisted of 36 participants diagnosed with social phobia assigned to either VRT or a group-CBT (control condition). The virtual environments used in the treatment recreate four situations dealing with social anxiety: performance, intimacy, scrutiny, and assertiveness. With the help of the therapist, the patient learns adapted cognitions and behaviors in order to reduce anxiety in the corresponding real situations. Both treatments lasted 12 weeks, and sessions were delivered according to a treatment manual. Results showed statistically and clinically significant improvement in both conditions. The effect-sizes comparing the efficacy of VRT to the control traditional group-CBT revealed that the differences between the two treatments are trivial.
Virtual reality has the potential to improve visualisation of building design and construction, but its implementation in the industry has yet to reach maturity. Present day translation of building data to virtual reality is often unidirectional and unsatisfactory. Three different approaches to the creation of models are identified and described in this paper. Consideration is given to the potential of both advances in computer-aided design and the emerging standards for data exchange to facilitate an integrated use of virtual reality. Commonalities and differences between computer-aided design and virtual reality packages are reviewed, and trials of current system, are described. The trials have been conducted to explore the technical issues related to the integrated use of CAD and virtual environments within the house building sector of the construction industry and to investigate the practical use of the new technology.
Cognitive studies of expertise that were reviewed in Chapter I indicated that prior knowledge is the most important 1earner characteristic that influences learning processes. Recently, it has been established that learning procedures and techniques that are beneficial for learners with low levels of prior knowledge may become relatively inefficient for more knowledgeable learners due to cognitive activities that consume additional working memory resources. This expertise reversal effect could be related to aptitude-treatment interactions (interactions between learning outcomes of different instructional treatments and student aptitudes) that were actively investigated in 1960-70s. The learner level of prior knowledge or level of expertise is the aptitude of interest in this case. The effect is explained by the cognitive overload that more knowledgeable learners may experience due to processing redundant for these learners instructional components (as compared to information without redundancy). As a consequence, instructional outcomes of different multimedia learning formats and procedures are always relative to levels of learner task-specific expertise. This chapter describes cognitive processes that cause expertise reversal effect and major instructional implications of this effect. The chapter provides a review of empirical evidence obtained in the original longitudinal studies of the effect, the expertise reversal for methods of enhancing essential cognitive load, and expertise reversal phenomena when learning from textual and hypertextual materials. The chapter also describes relations between the expertise reversal effect and studies of Aptitude-Treatment Interactions. Additional empirical evidence for the effect in other areas will be described in the following chapters in Section 2 of the book.
Background: Complex tasks such as surgical procedures can induce excessive cognitive load (CL), which can have a negative effect on learning, especially for novices.
Aim: To investigate if repeated and distributed virtual reality (VR) simulation practice induces a lower CL and higher performance in subsequent cadaveric dissection training.
Methods: In a prospective, controlled cohort study, 37 residents in otorhinolaryngology received VR simulation training either as additional distributed practice prior to course participation (intervention) (9 participants) or as standard practice during the course (control) (28 participants). Cognitive load was estimated as the relative change in secondary-task reaction time during VR simulation and cadaveric procedures.
Results: Structured distributed VR simulation practice resulted in lower mean reaction times (32% vs. 47% for the intervention and control group, respectively, p < 0.01) as well as a superior final-product performance during subsequent cadaveric dissection training.
Conclusions: Repeated and distributed VR simulation causes a lower CL to be induced when the learning situation is increased in complexity. A suggested mechanism is the formation of mental schemas and reduction of the intrinsic CL. This has potential implications for surgical skills training and suggests that structured, distributed training be systematically implemented in surgical training curricula.
Storytelling for Virtual Reality serves as a bridge between students of new media and professionals working between the emerging world of VR technology and the art form of classical storytelling. Rather than examining purely the technical, the text focuses on the narrative and how stories can best be structured, created, and then told in virtual immersive spaces. Author John Bucher examines the timeless principles of storytelling and how they are being applied, transformed, and transcended in Virtual Reality. Interviews, conversations, and case studies with both pioneers and innovators in VR storytelling are featured, including industry leaders at LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox, Oculus, Insomniac Games, and Google.
This study investigates the user experience to clarify what it is like to experience stories in VR (virtual reality) and how immersion influences story experiences in immersive storytelling. This study explores the immersive storytelling context, developing and testing a VR experience model that integrates presence, flow, empathy, and embodiment. The results imply that users’ personal traits correlates immersion in VR: user experience in VR depend on individual traits, which in turns influence how strongly users immerse in a VR. The way users view and accept VR stories derives from the way they envisage and intend to experience them. Rather than simply being influenced by technological features, users have intentional and purposeful control over VR stories. The findings of this study suggest that the cognitive processes by which users experience quality, presence, and flow determine how they will empathize with and embody VR stories.
Few studies have investigated the link between episodic memory and presence: the feeling of “being there” and reacting to a stimulus as if it were real. We collected data from 244 participants after they had watched the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron. They answered questions about factual (details of the movie) and temporal memory (order of the scenes) about the movie, as well as their emotion experience and their sense of presence during the projection. Both higher emotion experience and sense of presence were related to better factual memory, but not to temporal order memory. Crucially, the link between emotion and factual memory was mediated by the sense of presence. We interpreted the role of presence as an external absorption of the attentional focus toward the stimulus, thus enhancing memory encoding. Our findings could shed light on the cognitive processes underlying memory impairments in psychiatric conditions characterized by an altered sense of reality.
This chapter focuses on the use of Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) for cognitive load measurement. GSR is a measure of conductivity of human skin, and provides an indication of changes within the human sympathetic nervous system.
An intelligent interaction should not typically call attention to emotion. However, it almost always involves emotion: For example, it should engage, not inflict undesirable stress and frustration, and perhaps elicit positive emotions such as joy or delight. How would the system sense or recognize if it was succeeding in these elements of intelligent interaction? This keynote talk will address some ways that our work at the MIT Media Lab has advanced solutions for recognizing user emotion during everyday experiences.
Several studies in the literature have shown positive psychophysical effects during or immediately after mindfulness meditation. However, the extent to which such positive effects are maintained in real-life, stressful contexts, remains unclear. This paper investigates the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) program on the psychological and physiological responses evoked by immersive virtual environments (IVEs) that simulate emergency situations that may occur in life. Before and after the 8-week period, healthy MOM participants and a group of controls not involved in any meditation course were administered self-report measures of mindfulness and anxiety, and acted in the IVEs while a set of physiological parameters were recorded. Responses of MOM participants to the immersive virtual experiences were different from those of controls. MOM participants showed increased mindfulness and decreased anxiety levels. They also showed decreased heart rate and corrugator muscle activity while facing IVEs. We explain these results in terms of the awareness and acceptance components of mindfulness. More generally, the present experimental methods could also open up new lines of research that combine psychological and physiological indices with ecologically valid stimuli provided by IVEs in an effort to increase understanding of the impact of mindfulness meditation on realistic life situations.
This chapter discusses the multimedia learning. Multimedia learning occurs when a learner builds a mental representation from words and pictures that have been presented. For purposes of research program, multimedia instructional messages are presentations of material using words and pictures that are intended to foster learning. The pictures can be static graphics such as photos, drawings, maps, charts, figures, and tables or dynamic graphics such as video or animation. Multimedia learning occurs if one constructs a mental representation of the lightning system based on the words and pictures in the multimedia instructional message. In this case, one must build a cause-and-effect model of how a change in one part of the system causes a principle-based change in another part, and so on. For example, when cool air comes over a warm surface, the cool air becomes heated and rises.
Mental workload and situation awareness are both outgrowths of the practical need to assess operators' performing and managing dynamic complex tasks. Mental workload refers to the cost placed on the human operator's cognitive processing abilities by performing the required task-related mental processing. Situation awareness is the operator's apprehension of the current situation. Common goals of designing a new system or modifying an existing one are often to reduce the operator's mental workload while increasing the operator's situation awareness. However, the empirical database obtained from concurrent evaluation of mental workload and situation awareness demonstrates that the two measures generally do not co-vary in such a simple fashion. The lack of a single straightforward correlation could be interpreted as an indication that mental workload and situation awareness must be considered independent of each other. However, parsing the available studies into sub-categories based on the type of manipulation mat was investigated allows some possible relationships between mental workload and situation awareness to emerge. This suggests that researchers should continue to examine the relationship between these concepts and system evaluators should not consider mental workload or situation awareness in isolation from the other.
This study aims to verify the learning effectiveness of a desktop virtual reality (VR)-based learning environment, and to investigate the effects of desktop VR-based learning environment on learners with different spatial abilities. The learning outcome was measured cognitively through academic performance. A quasi pretest–posttest experimental design was employed for this study. A total of 431 high school students from four randomly selected schools participated in this study where they were randomly assigned to either experimental or control groups based on intact classes. Findings indicate a significant difference in the performance achievement between the two groups with students performed better using desktop virtual reality. A possible explanation is that the desktop virtual reality instructional intervention has helped to reduce extraneous cognitive load and engages learners in active processing of instructional material to increase germane cognitive load. A significant interaction effect was found between the learning mode and spatial ability with regard to the performance achievement. Further analysis shows a significant difference in the performance of low spatial ability learners in the experimental and control groups, but no statistically significant difference in the performance of high spatial learners in both groups. The results signify that low spatial ability learners' performance, compared with high spatial ability learners, appeared to be more positively affected by the desktop VR-based learning environment which is supported by the ability-as-compensator hypothesis, and can be explained by the cognitive load theory.
Cognitive load theory (CLT) is gaining increasing importance in the design and evaluation of instruction, both traditional and technology based. Although it is well understood as a theoretical construct, the measurement of cognitive load induced by instructional materials in general, and by multimedia instruction in particular, mainly relies on methods that are either indirect, subjective, or both. Integrating aspects of CLT, working memory research, and cognitive theories of multimedia learning, we describe the conceptual basis and practical implementation of a dual-task approach to the direct measurement of cognitive load in multimedia learning. This computer-based instrument provides a direct and objective measure that overcomes many of the shortcomings of other indirect and subjective methods that will enable researchers to validate empirically theoretical predictions of CLT.