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Augmented Reality (AR) is under constant development and as of today, everyday use of AR is most common in bigger industries such as the car industry, healthcare and education. Moreover, there exists a gap in the research area regarding AR and the everyday use of it in a domestic environment. Therefore, this study aims to target that gap to further contribute with new information to support further research and development of the possibilities with AR in a domestic environment. In this study two semi-structured were conducted to gain insight about the potential area of usage for AR as well as risks regarding AR. Two groups were participating in the interviews, representatives from companies (N=5) who worked with Extended Realty (XR) to varying degrees and private individuals (N=7) who did not work with XR and had varying experience of AR. The result covers possible appliances, problems related to Augmented Reality and the development of AR, it presents underlying reasons explaining why AR has not established a foothold in a domestic environment as well as crucial factors regarding future usage.

Utility network fieldworkers of today want to access more information and can benefit a lot from new technical development. Today most fieldwork is conducted using paper plans or locally stored data on laptops as a visual aid. Therefore there is a need for improvement and development of new reliable software for fieldwork. Also the abil- ity to use advanced Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solutions and enhanced visualization methods while out in the field could help improve fieldwork. In order to be as e↵ective as possible when carrying out di↵erent tasks in the field, di↵erent ways of visualizing the same network data are required. 2D and 3D visualization methods have di↵erent advantages and disadvantages when it comes to visualizing network data, which will be accounted for in this thesis. There are three main objectives in this thesis. The first is to evaluate how suitable di↵erent visualization methods are for fieldwork users working with utility networks. The second is to get a better understanding of what hardware and software that can be used for implementing the visualization methods. The last one is to use the first and second objectives to develop a prototype for utility network fieldwork. To address the objectives, the first step is to understand the users that work in the field. By conducting interviews, information about the current workflow for fieldworkers and their opinions about how the systems currently work is gathered. Based on this information the thesis is divided into cases and criteria which is the foundation for proposing a solution in form of mock-up sketches which is then imple- mented in form of a prototype. Finally the prototype is evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively using a web survey and presentations for potential end users. The prototype is created using web technologies and is mainly intended for tablets. Because of its mobility, screen size and adequate computational power the tablet is a good hardware choice for conducting fieldwork. The prototype presents network data in a 2D interactive map view, a 3D augmented reality (AR) view and a combined view. These choices are based on information gathered by studying related work and performing interviews with potential end users in the beginning of the study. The results of the thesis highlights large possibilities in making field work more e↵ective for fieldworkers. This in concluded partly by the results of the interviews with potential end users, but also by the response of the survey and presentation of the suggested solution. It is shown that there are new ways to improve the work process out in the field and that AR can help in visualizing the network in a new informative way for fieldwork. However, several challenges remain, but rapid techno- logical development implies possible solutions to deal with these challenges.

When healthcare professionals perceive patients’ symptoms through media or media technologies, how do they respond to them? Many studies have explored the effects of the film, novels, music on empathy and recently a few studies started focusing on the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that visualize patients’ invisible symptoms and their effects on the empathy of medical students as future healthcare professionals; however, their psychological processes are not fully elaborated yet. This dissertation was designed to detail the psychological processes evoked by AR that visually mimics migraine symptoms and uses presence and narrative transportation to increase empathy. A mixed-method study was conducted to untangle the psychological processes of presence, narrative transportation, and empathy by exploring their existence, nature, strength, and meanings. Two treatment conditions were created: a head-mounted display (HMD) as a high immersive condition and a handheld display as a low immersive condition with a focus on media immersiveness as the degree to which AR submerges its users’ perceptual system. The study participants were a small (n=27), but motivated group of medical student learners. In the quantitative results, AR was not visually immersive enough to evoke presence as a perceptual illusion of non-mediation directly since there were systematic effects of media immersiveness of AR on presence, but there were no significant effects of media immersiveness on presence when controlling for medical students’ tendencies and abilities. It was assumed that presence occurred as a constructive perceptual process indirectly mediated through medical students’ tendencies and abilities. In a canonical correlation and stepwise regression, the maximal correlation among immediate sense of presence and narrative transportation and situational empathy revealed an optimal degree of perceptual involvement that leads to sympathy as a positive state of situational empathy. Another canonical correlation and stepwise regression among the traits of immersive tendency and physician empathy and situational empathy showed that there is also an optimal degree of medical students’ sensitivity trait that leads to sympathy as a relatively stable situational empathy. Since, as interview results showed, medical students’ motives were prosocial, it is possible to interpret distress or sadness as another type of situational empathy entailing caring about others. In the qualitative results, there were close relationships between media environment and presence. An immersive virtual environment (IVE) via AR, which affords users the perceptual or embodied feeling of physically being surrounded by its represented environment, was closely related to sensorimotor perceptual processing of presence. A continuous immersive mixed environment (IME) via AR, which affords users the imaginatively situated feeling by mixed reality, extended presence in the actual environment through the process of narrative transportation and affect. The contributions of the findings to the theory and research literature regarding presence are discussed along with recommendations regarding practical contributions to ongoing efforts to enhance healthcare professionals’ empathy and thereby effectiveness in treating patients with migraines and other conditions and illnesses. / Media & Communication

This thesis project was undertaken with the intent to discover the source of a known but hitherto unexplained error in the calibration of the wings for a haploscope used in depth perception studies. The angles of the haploscope wings are used to control the vergence angle of the virtual images projected into each eye. This accounts for a strong depth cue used in AR and depth perception studies. Two experiments were devised to both display and attempt to characterize the error between the theoretical wing angles needed to cause a user's vision to verge at some focal depth and the actual wing angles that caused vergence. The investigation revealed a near-constant offset between the theoretical and actual angles needed. This suggests that the error may not stem from the haploscope alignment itself, but from how the center of the user's eye is currently modelled.

Augmented reality (AR) is a very promising display technology with many compelling industrial applications. However, before it can be used in actual settings, its fidelity needs to be investigated from a user-centric viewpoint. More specifically, how distance to the virtual objects is perceived in augmented reality is still an open question. To the best of our knowledge, there are only four previous studies that specifically studied distance perception in AR within reaching distances. Therefore, distance perception in augmented reality still remains a largely understudied phenomenon. This document presents research in depth perception in augmented reality in the near visual field. The specific goal of this research is to empirically study various measurement techniques for depth perception, and to study various factors that affect depth perception in augmented reality, specifically, eye accommodation, brightness, and participant age. This document discusses five experiments that have already been conducted. Experiment I aimed to determine if there are inherent difference between the perception of virtual and real objects by comparing depth judgments using two complementary distance judgment protocols: perceptual matching and blind reaching. This experiment found that real objects are perceived more accurately than virtual objects and matching is a relatively more accurate distance measure than reaching. Experiment II compared the two distance judgment protocols in the real world and augmented reality environments, with improved proprioceptive and visual feedback. This experiment found that reaching responses in the AR environment became more accurate with improved feedback. Experiment III studied the effect of different levels of accommodative demand (collimated, consistent, and midpoint) on distance judgments. This experiment found nearly accurate distance responses in the consistent and midpoint conditions, and a linear increase in error in the collimated condition. Experiment IV studied the effect of brightness of the target object on depth judgments. This experiment found that distance responses were shifted towards background for the dim AR target. Lastly, Experiment V studied the effect of participant age on depth judgments and found that older participants judged distance more accurately than younger participants. Taken together, these five experiments will help us understand how depth perception operates in augmented reality.

In manufacturing, emerging digital technologies related to industry 4.0 are playing an assisting role for operators, and just as in previous industrial revolutions the paradigm for operators in the industry is changing. This study has two key goals. The first is to look into the impact of the worker's psychosocial impacts under the operator 4.0 typologies during assembly, training, and maintenance operations, and the second is to look into the potential changes in the operator framework as the industry progresses from 4.0 to 5.0. This study proposed a theoretical framework for assessing psychosocial impacts in operator 4.0 typologies. The proposed framework can be utilized by the company managers, researchers, production engineers, and human resource personnel for the psychosocial risk assessment of the operators in assembly, training, and maintenance operations as self-report questionnaires. This study employed a systematic literature review strategy to answer the study objectives. The findings reveal that the nature of work, the social and organizational environment of work, and individual impacts are all key categories, that might impact operators’ psychosocial environments in assembly, training, and maintenance operations under the operator 4.0 typologies.This study focuses on determining the psychosocial consequences of the operator 4.0 typologies and helps the operators to become more aware, and equipment designers should consider operator psychosocial work conditions when designing new augmented equipment for assisting operators in the work environment. Most advanced technologies are unfamiliar to operators, and they have exhibited a reluctance to accept new technology because it significantly changes their working environment. Which necessitates the training and awareness of operators regarding advanced technologies. Operator 4.0 typologies were introduced with a vision to create a socially sustainable environment for operators. However, the identified psychosocial impacts make it favorable and unfavorable to the operators.

Parental death has been recognized as the most over-whelming grief in the second wave of Covid-19 in India. And the research has shown that bereaved youth need to talk about their emotions to be able to positively process this sudden change of growing up too fast too early.  It is not easy to cope with the crumbling of your founding pillars. The latest understanding of grief among youth focuses on continuing the bond with the deceased in a discreet fash-ion, which counteracts with the traditional norms and ex-pectations of Indian society. The result of an ethnographic study, with the aim of gaining insights into the significance of conversation on grief as a tool for learning to cope with grief, creates an opportunity for new understanding of grief coping mechanisms within individuals as speaker, listener, and witness. The nuances of a conversational AI-enabled VR tool gives access to the exchange of unique grieving experi-ence with the technology that blurs the boundary of judg-ments, fear of oversharing, and hesitance of letting your guard down. Allowing for profound conversation around grief which contradicts the conventional discourse around death conversation about moving on or letting go of the bond with the deceased

Environmental problems are increasingly jeopardizing the earth's life-support systems. By shifting from a take-make-dispose industrial model to a circular one, resources will last longer, and the environmental impact will be significantly lower. People’s choices, behaviours and lifestyles will play a vital role in achieving sustainable development. A way to influence this is to use an educational tool that is accessible, interesting and fun. By superimposing computer generated objects to the real world, Augmented Reality (AR) adds a layer of interactivity and engagement. As there are 3 billion active smartphone users worldwide, an AR smartphone application is also very accessible. This thesis investigates how marker-based AR can be used as a means to educate a user in circular economy. This was done by using research through design and applied research to create a design for a prototype which worked as a proof of concept. The prototype was evaluated through a heuristic evaluation. Data was gathered through a form and semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed using the framework method and box plots. The prototype used marker-based AR and was built using the game engine Unity with the Vuforia SDK. The results indicated that an AR application could be a good tool to use in combination with other sources of information such as seminars. / Miljöproblem äventyrar i allt större utsträckning jordens livsstödssystem. Genom att byta från en ta-skapa-kasta industriell modell till en cirkulär, kommer resurserna att räcka längre och miljöpåverkan blir betydligt lägre. Människors val, beteenden och livsstil kommer att spela en viktig roll för att uppnå en hållbar utveckling. Ett sätt att påverka detta är att använda ett pedagogiskt verktyg som är lättillgängligt, intressant och roligt. Genom att lägga till ett lager av virtuella objekt i den verkliga världen, tillför Augmented Reality (AR), interaktivitet och engagemang. Eftersom det finns 3 miljarder aktiva smarttelefonanvändare över hela världen, är en AR-smarttelefonapplikation också lättillgänglig. Denna avhandling undersöker hur markörbaserad AR kan användas för att utbilda en användare i cirkulär ekonomi. Detta gjordes genom att använda forskning genom design och tillämpad forskning för att designa en prototyp för konceptvalidering. Prototypen utvärderades genom en heuristisk utvärdering. Data samlades in genom ett formulär och halvstrukturerade intervjuer samt analyserades med hjälp av ramverks metoden och lådagram. Prototypen använde markörbaserad AR och byggdes med hjälp av spelmotorn Unity med Vuforia SDK. Resultaten visade att en AR-applikation skulle kunna vara ett bra verktyg att använda i kombination med andra informationskällor, som till exempel seminarier.