Human-computer interaction design principles largely focus on static representations and have yet to fully incorporate theories of perception appropriate for the dynamic multimodal interactions inherent to virtual environment (VE) interaction. Theories of direct perception, in particular affordance theory, may prove particularly relevant to enhancing VE interaction design. The present research constructs a conceptual model of how affordances are realized in the natural world and how lack of sensory stimuli may lead to realization failures in virtual environments. Implications of the model were empirically investigated by examining three affordances: passability, catchability, and flyability. The experimental design involved four factors for each of the three affordances and was implemented as a 2 [subscript IV] [superscript 4-1] fractional factorial design. The results demonstrated that providing affording cues led to behavior closely in-line with real-world behavior. More specifically, when given affording cues participants tended to rotate their virtual bodies when entering narrow passageways, accurately judge balls as catchable, and fly when conditions warranted it. The results support the conceptual model and demonstrate 1) that substituting designed cues via sensory stimuli in available sensory modalities for absent or impoverished modalities may enable the perception of affordances in VEs; 2) that sensory stimuli substitutions provide potential approaches for enabling the perception of affordances in a VE which in the real world are cross-modal; and 3) that affordances relating to specific action capabilities may be enabled by designed sensory stimuli. This research lays an empirical foundation for a science of VE design based on choosing and implementing design properties so as to evoke targeted user behavior

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:21:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Manoel Eloy de Melo.pdf: 437382 bytes, checksum: cd6e26da4df962e138c4b68d6c4b8767 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-07-31 / The Araguaia River has became one of the greatest point to the ecological tourism in Goiás region, due to its natural beauties such as beaches throughout its margins. The unplanned tourism may cause negative consequences to natural resources, thus to know the profile of the tourist and their knowledge concerning to the whole environment is an important tool into the ecosystem conservation. The Araguaia River is a food plain river, and it has several cities alongside the river, such as Aruanã, considered the entrance to Araguaia Valley. As many as 65% of tourists in Aruanã are men with mean age of 36 years old and married, with a high education degree and coming from Goiás. The tourists usually remain 10 days in Araguaia River spending an average of US$ 61,7 per day. The Araguaia River is the main attractive to 45,3% and fishing is preferred activity to relax to 24,2% of these tourists. Despite the tourist activity be quite connected to the ecosystem, the ecological wisdom of tourists about vegetation and ecological cycles are low, and 30% of them consider that they do use any natural resources, compromising the integrity of the ecosystem by the bad utilization of environmental services of Araguaia River, in Aruanã region. / O Rio Araguaia se tornou um grande atrativo para o turismo ecológico na região de Goiás, devido as suas belezas naturais como as praias ao longo de suas margens durante o período de estiagem. O turismo exercido de forma desordenada pode gerar conseqüências negativas aos recursos naturais explorados por esse turismo, por isso conhecer o perfil do visitante e medir os seus conhecimentos acerca do ambiente visitado torna-se uma ferramenta importante na conservação do ecossistema (Rio Araguaia). O Rio Araguaia é um rio de planície e possui as suas margens inúmeras cidades, entre elas a cidade de Aruanã, que é considerada o portal de entrada do Vale do Araguaia. Cerca de 65% dos turistas que visitam a região de Aruanã são homens com idade média de 36 anos, casados com nível elevado de escolarização e provenientes em sua maioria do próprio estado. Os turistas permanecem cerca de 10 dias no Rio Araguaia perfazendo um gasto diário médio de US$ 61,7. O Rio Araguaia é o principal atrativo para 45,3% dos entrevistados e pescar é a atividade de lazer preferida por 24,2% desses visitantes. Apesar de o turismo estar muito ligado ao ecossistema (Rio Araguaia) as percepções ecológicas dos turistas acerca da formação fitogeográfica e ciclos ecológicos são baixas, além disso, cerca de 38% dos turistas acreditavam não utilizar nenhum recurso natural, o que pode comprometer a integridade dos recursos naturais devido a má utilização dos bens e serviços ambientais providos pelo Rio Araguaia, região de Aruanã.