Masters Research - Master of Design (Research) / This study explores the development of patterns for the visual design of interface elements within a virtual environment. The document will outline the process for this study and will formalise an approach for future research. Commonly, existing interface systems allow for the representation of data storage, manipulation and navigation via two dimensional structures. With the emergence of virtual reality systems in medicine, military and entertainment there becomes a need to transform this limited two dimensional representation into one that best facilitates the new environment. The proposed model will incorporate application menu systems and the modes of manipulation of data in specific applications. The framework for a prototype of the interface has been produced as well as a structure for assessment via user interaction and response. This framework will provide a template for understanding the base interaction with the operating system, that is, how to organise files and initiate software, as well as the operation of a simulated software package. If the prototype were built then it would be viewed as a virtual environment and the interaction could take place via the use of either mouse (or similar prop) or data-glove. Future study could include the actual building of each of the interface variations and putting the series of users through the prescribed experiment procedure. Applications of an interface resulting from testing such as this could be found within a range of fields. Military training currently makes use of virtual simulation and this could provide access to information needed within operational procedures. Similar technologies could be adapted for pilot control systems within a visor display. For medical research, where virtual surgical techniques are being used, information could be accessed within the operating environment that had otherwise been contained in adjacent systems outside immediate reach. Real world application of these models would be limited at this time by the use of the appropriate computing power, however, the future use of this study could have broader application within the development of game technology, internet access and data mining. The proposed experiment requires the development of interface variations based on a predefined pattern structure that informs the design of certain elements and of the tasks to be performed. The patterns included in this study form the initial set from which a library could be extended and developed upon. While these pattern definitions are crucial to the execution of the experiment, they have been presented here in Appendix A to preserve flow and readability of the document. The review of the current literature within this study covers a range of publications related to the development of virtual and augmented environment interfaces. A summation of the tools, devices, techniques and constraints which affect this area of development has been included. The review is presented to provide broad background information for the reader, building a context through which the experiment should be viewed. The purpose of this study is to provide a method through which the visual representation of an interface can be more consistently assessed. This will be achieved through the use of a pattern language for a development framework, providing interface consistency in structure and principle. This is significant to the field as currently the assessment of visual representation is conducted across projects without a consistent framework and the subsequent learning is not readily transferred across applications.

Virtual reality-based instruction such as virtual worlds, games, and simulations are becoming very popular in K-12 and higher education. Three manuscripts that report the results of investigations of these increasingly prevalent instructional media were developed for this dissertation. The purpose of the first study, a meta-analysis, was to analyze the instructional effectiveness of virtual reality-based instruction when compared to the traditional methods of instruction. In addition, this study also explored selected instructional design features of the virtual learning environment that moderated the relationship between instructional method and the academic achievements. Analyses of 63 experimental or quasi-experimental studies that studied learning outcomes of virtual reality-based instruction in K-12 or higher education settings yielded a mean effect size of g = 0.47 (SE = 0.02) suggesting that virtual reality-based instruction is an effective medium of delivering instruction. Further analyses examined factors that influence its effectiveness. The purpose of the second study was to examine a model of the impact of a 3-D desktop virtual reality environment on the learner characteristics (i.e. perceptual and psychological variables) that can enhance chemistry-related learning achievements in an introductory college chemistry class. A theoretical model of the relationships of features of 3-D virtual reality environments and students' experiences in the environments to outcomes on a chemistry learning test and measures of spatial ability and self-efficacy was tested using structural equation modeling. Usability strongly mediated the relationship between 3-D virtual reality features, spatial orientation, self-efficacy, and presence. Spatial orientation and self-efficacy had a statistically significant, positive impact on the chemistry learning test. The purpose of the third study was to investigate the potential of Second Life (SL), a 3-D virtual world, to enhance undergraduate students? learning of a foundational chemistry concept, spatial ability, and self-efficacy. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was used. A total of 387 participants completed three assignment activities either in Second Life or using 2-D images. The difference between the scores of 3-D virtual environment-based group and the 2-D images-based group was not statistically significant for any of the measures.

Avatarer är vanligt förekommande i datorspel och används för nöjes skull men avatarer används även i seriösa spel. Rapporten undersöker hur en persons självkänsla och body image kan stärkas med hjälp av en avatar och vilka egenskaper avataren behöver ha. Undersökningen genomförs som en litteraturstudie. Slutsatsen är att det troligen går att skapa en avatar för detta ändamål, men att det är många aspekter att ta hänsyn till och att det inte är helt självklart vilka val som behöver göras. Viktigt verkar dock att användaren själv får välja sin avatar, att till exempel typen av klädsel påverkar liksom avatarens längd. Det verkar också vara en avvägning om det är bäst att skapa en avatar som liknar personen själv eller att skapa en avatar som har förmågor som personen kan se upp till för att må bättre. Vilket alternativ som är bäst varierar troligen från person till person.

Abstract The focus of this thesis is on perceivable interaction forms that can be utilised in multi-player computer games and Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). Interaction forms are manifestations of user-user and user-environment interaction. These forms convey the actions of the user to others, and to oneself, during synchronous communication and interaction partially resembling face-to-face encounters in the physical world. The communication, co-ordination and collaboration difficulties in current 3D CVEs have yet to be overcome. The aim of this thesis is to conceptualise and delineate the available mutually perceivable interaction forms. The research analyses entertainment industry solutions and examines their potential as providers of design implications for CVE systems in general. Furthermore, games are used as platforms in the construction phases of the research. The research answers the problems of what interaction forms exist in multi-player games and what are their main characteristics and how to apply the understanding of possible interaction forms in order to help the design of games and professionally used CVEs? The problems are approached with conceptual analytical and constructive methods. Delineation and categorisation of various interaction forms in games and CVEs is presented. The gap between theoretical models and practical design is bridged by using several empirical cases as a constructive part of the research. The significance of this research is related to the increasingly important role of CVEs in global organisations and virtual enterprises, as well as in the everyday life of people. The communicational and functional enhancements of the virtual environments and multi-player games make the interpersonal interaction more usable and applicable in computer mediated settings. The research provides a deeper understanding of the concept of interaction forms in the context of CVEs and multi-player games. The results can be used to create more supportive, appealing and communicative applications by applying interaction models and theories in the form of rich interaction design guidelines. The main contributions of this research are the conceptual models of interaction forms and corresponding rich interaction design suggestions. The results reveal important and neglected aspects of interaction forms to the world of game and virtual environment designers. Combined with the descriptions of interaction design processes the overall outcome of the work is applicable to a wide audience designing or using computer systems that support communication, co-ordination and collaboration.

Studier har påvisat att de negativa attityder som en stor del av befolkning uppvisar mot mental ohälsa är en bidragande faktor till de stigma som omger många av dessa sjukdomar. Denna uppsats ställer två frågor: hur kan en simulering av psykos konstrueras för VR och på vilket sätt kan en sådan simulering påverka attityderna gentemot tillståndet psykos. I ett försök att besvara dessa frågor byggdes en prototyp med Unity3D och Google Resonance audio. Denna prototyp användes sedan i kombination med två enkäter för att besvara frågan gällande attitydförändringar. Resultaten kom att visa att det är möjligt att konstruera en sådan simulering samt att VR som medium uppvisar potential att påverka attityden hos användaren gentemot ämnet för simulering. Som fortsättning på denna uppsats skulle framtida forskning kunna bestå framtagningen av ett ramverk för konstruerandet av simulering i VR. Framtida forskning skulle även kunna fokusera på att upprepa enkäterna med ett större antal deltagare. Detta skulle leda till ett större dataset vilket i sin tur skulle främja belysandet av subtila skillnader i de potentiella attitydförändringarna. / Studies have shown that the negative attitudes held by a substantial portion of the general public towards mental illness is a contributing factor to the stigma surrounding illnesses such as schizophrenia and psychosis. This thesis asks two questions: how to construct a psychosis simulation using VR and in what ways such a simulation can affect the attitudes towards the illness. As an attempt to answer these questions a prototype was built using Unity3D and Google Resonance audio. This prototype was then used in conjunction with two surveys in order to answer the question regarding attitudes. The results showed that building such a simulation is possible and that VR holds potential to affect participants attitudes towards the subject of simulation. To build upon this thesis, future work could consist of establishing a framework for building simulations in VR. Future work could also consist of repeating the surveys with a larger number of participants which would yield a larger data set which in turn would promote the highlighting of subtle nuances in a potential attitude change.

The intent of this thesis is to explore whether an existing spatial schema assists with learning a similar environment to the existing schema. Spatially experienced and non-experienced participants of Magic Kingdom Park learned a similar park, Disneyland Park, using a virtual environment. Participants learned the virtual environment either passively or actively. Spatially experienced participants outperformed the non-experienced participants on survey and route knowledge assessments, despite of the training method used in the virtual environment. The results suggest that the existing schema for a similar place transfers to the new environment regardless of passive or active training.

Content augmentation strategies (CAS) are instructional methods which specify the overlaying of content objects by content augmentation objects in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction. The goals of this research were to build a comprehensive framework around CASs, determine the experimental effects of CASs in an instructional virtual environment (VE), and make recommendations regarding the employment and further study of CASs in instructional virtual environments. The VE experiment examined the effectiveness and efficiency impact of six different content augmentation strategies which overlayed different content augmentation objects onto four immersive VE scenarios. Sixty university students, 40 men and 20 women, executed three CAS-enhanced training missions and one no-CAS test mission. The task involved the recall and correct application of specific rules for three subtasks of a military helicopter landing zone scouting mission. The strategies included a no-strategy control condition, an arrow condition, an audio coaching condition, a text coaching condition, an arrow plus audio coaching condition, and an arrow plus text coaching condition. Statistical and decision analyses were conducted on the effectiveness and efficiency performance data. Statistically significant differences were found which supported the general superiority of the audio content augmentation strategy for these tasks. This dissertation may be the first use of a decision analysis approach for analyzing the results of behavioral data for instructional design decisions. The decision analysis approach used decision trees, simulation and optimization to obtain content augmentation strategy rankings. As this approach is normally used for course of action analysis and comparing alternative system configurations, the validity of this approach in this context has yet to be determined. The decision analysis approach obtained plausible and similar, but not identical recommendations to the statistical approach. The decision analysis approach may constitute a limited instantiation of a proposed optimal stimulus set instructional design model which conceptually framed the experiment. Training guideline recommendations, experimental procedure recommendations, and a comprehensive framework for future research are also presented.

Virtual environment (VE) technology offers a viable training option for developing knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) within domains that have limited live training opportunities due to personnel safety and cost (e.g., live fire exercises). However, to ensure these VE training systems provide effective training and transfer, designers of such systems must ensure that training goals and objectives are clearly defined and VEs are designed to support development of KSAs required. Perhaps the greatest benefit of VE training is its ability to provide a multimodal training experience, where trainees can see, hear and feel their surrounding environment, thus engaging them in training scenarios to further their expertise. This work focused on enhancing situation awareness (SA) within a training VE through appropriate use of multimodal cues. The Multimodal Optimization of Situation Awareness (MOSA) model was developed to identify theoretical benefits of various environmental and individual multimodal cues on SA components. Specific focus was on benefits associated with adding cues that activated the haptic system (i.e., kinesthetic/cutaneous sensory systems) or vestibular system in a VE. An empirical study was completed to evaluate the effectiveness of adding two independent spatialized tactile cues to a Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) VE training system, and how head tracking (i.e., addition of rotational vestibular cues) impacted spatial awareness and performance when tactile cues were added during training. Results showed tactile cues enhanced spatial awareness and performance during both repeated training and within a transfer environment, yet there were costs associated with including two cues together during training, as each cue focused attention on a different aspect of the global task. In addition, the results suggest that spatial awareness benefits from a single point indicator (i.e., spatialized tactile cues) may be impacted by interaction mode, as performance benefits were seen when tactile cues were paired with head tracking. Future research should further examine theoretical benefits outlined in the MOSA model, and further validate that benefits can be realized through appropriate activation of multimodal cues for targeted training objectives during training, near transfer and far transfer (i.e., real world performance).

The U.S. military uses pattern recognition training to observe anomalies in human behavior. An examination of the pattern recognition training literature for Warfighters reveals a gap in training to discern patterns of human behavior in live environments. Additionally, the current state of warfare is evolving and requires operations to change. As a result, pattern recognition training must accommodate new practices to improve performance. A technique used to improve memory for identifying patterns in the environment is Kim's game. Kim's game establishes patterns to identify inanimate objects, of which information retains in memory for later recall. The paper discusses the fundamental principles of Kim's game applied to virtual Simulation-Based Training. The virtual version of Kim's game contains customized scenarios for training behavior cue analysis. Virtual agents display kinesic cues that exhibit aggressive (i.e., slap hands and clench fist) and nervous behaviors including wring hands and check six. This research takes a novel approach by animating the kinesics cues in the virtual version of Kim's game for pattern recognition training. Detection accuracy, response time, and false positive detection serve as the performance data for analysis. Additional survey data collected include engagement, flow, and simulator sickness. All collected data was compared to a control condition to examine its effectiveness of behavior cue detection. A series of one-way between subjects design ANOVA's were conducted to examine the differences between Kim's game and control on post-test performance. Although, the results from this experiment showed no significance in post-test performance, the percent change in post-test performance provide further insight into the results of the Kim's game and control strategies. Specifically, participants in the control condition performed better than the Kim's game group on detection accuracy and response time. However, the Kim's game group outperformed the control group on false positive detection. Further, this experiment explored the differences in Engagement, Flow, and Simulator Sickness after the practice scenario between Kim's game group and the control group. The results found no significant difference in Engagement, partial significance for Flow, and significant difference for Simulator Sickness between the Kim's game and control group after the practice scenario. Next, a series of Spearman's rank correlations were conducted to assess the relationships between Engagement, Flow, Simulator Sickness, and post-test performance, as well as examine the relationship between working memory and training performance; resulting in meaningful correlations to explain the relationships and identifying new concepts to explain unrelated variables. Finally, the role of Engagement, Flow, and Simulator Sickness as a predictor of post-test performance was examined using a series of multiple linear regressions. The results highlighted Simulator Sickness as a significant predictor of post-test performance. Overall, the results from this experiment proposes to expand the body of pattern recognition training literature by identifying strategies that enhance behavior cue detection training. Furthermore, it provides recommendations to training and education communities for improving behavior cue analysis. ?

The purpose of simulation is to avoid reality-based constraints by the implemen-tation of a synthetic model. Based on this advantage, interactive simulations have conquered all areas of applications from acquisition, and training, to research. Simulation results are transferred in many ways into reality and conclusions are drawn from the simulation to the application. Many anecdotal observations on human-in-the-loop simulations have shown a significant difference in actor behavior between simulations and reality-based applications. It seems that the factors that makes simulation so attractive, namely the absence of constraints and especially of imminent danger for persons and equipment, influence the behavior and thereby the performance of the user. These differences between simulation and reality may lead to false conclusions based on simulation results. The concept of perceiving a simulation as real and of being in the simulation is called sense of presence. This psychological construct can also be described as level of disbelief towards the simulation. Hence, differences in behavior are based on such users assessment of a simulation and subsequently are supposed to be mediated by a difference in presence. This research established significant differences in presence and performance between a simulation and a miniature-world teleoperation task. Presence and performance changed in identical tasks due to the application type and the connected danger to the robot. Also, the results supported a negative relationship between presence and performance: presence increased in the miniature-world and affected performance so that performance decreased. The causal relationship of application type→ presence→ performance was established and demands the examination of simulation based results with respect to the perceived danger to equipment, before they are transferred into the real application.