The increasing availability of head-mounted displays (HMDs) for home use motivates the study of the possible effects that adopting this new hardware might have on users. Moreover, while the impact of ...display type has been studied for different kinds of tasks, it has been scarcely explored in procedural training. Our study considered three different types of displays used by participants for training in aviation safety procedures with a serious game. The three displays were respectively representative of: (i) desktop VR (a standard desktop monitor), (ii) many setups for immersive VR used in the literature (an HMD with narrow field of view and a 3-DOF tracker), and (iii) new setups for immersive home VR (an HMD with wide field of view and 6-DOF tracker). We assessed effects on knowledge gain, and different self-reported measures (self-efficacy, engagement, presence). Unlike previous studies of display type that measured effects only immediately after the VR experience, we considered also a longer time span (2 weeks). Results indicated that the display type played a significant role in engagement and presence. The training benefits (increased knowledge and self-efficacy) were instead obtained, and maintained at two weeks, regardless of the display used. The paper discusses the implications of these results.
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in serious games (SGs), i.e., digital games for education and training. However, although the potential scalability of SGs to large player populations ...is often praised in the literature, available SG evaluations did not provide evidence of it because they did not study learning on large, varied, international samples in naturalistic conditions. This article considers a SG that educates players about aircraft cabin safety. It presents the first study of learning in a SG intervention conducted in naturalistic conditions with a very large, worldwide sample, which includes 45,000 players who accepted to answer a knowledge questionnaire before and after playing the game, and more than 400,000 players whose in-game behavior was analyzed. Results show that the SG led to improvement in players' knowledge, assessed with different metrics. Moreover, analysis of repeated play shows that participants improved their in-game safety behavior over time. We also focus on the role of making errors in the game, showing how they led to improvement in knowledge. Finally, we highlight the theoretical models, such as error-based learning and Protection Motivation Theory, that oriented the game design, and can be reused to create SGs for other domains.
•Gamification and serious games still employ a limited set of game elements.•We explore the use of arcade game elements to change attitudes in aviation safety.•A first study compares the serious game ...we propose vs. the traditional safety card.•A second study assesses the effects of the serious game when used over a 1-week period.•Results highlight significant effects on attitudes and a mediating role of engagement.
Gamification and serious games are increasingly employed for attitude change purposes. However, they frequently exploit a limited set of game elements, such as points, badges and leaderboards, and scarcely explore the use of more complex elements that make games engaging. In this paper, we focus on game elements from the arcade genre, and their use in serious games for attitude change. In particular, we propose a serious game for mobile devices that employs arcade game elements for attitude change in aviation safety, and we assess its effects with two different studies. The first study compares the immediate effects of the serious game vs. the traditional approach (safety card), showing that the game is more engaging and can improve attitudes towards aircraft emergencies in terms of users’ self-efficacy and perceived vulnerability to the risk. The second study assesses the effects of the serious game when used over time (1-week) in a naturalistic setting, showing that the game can engage users and increase knowledge about correct and wrong behaviors. In both studies, engagement turned out to play a mediating role that we analyze in detail.
Digital games for education and training, also called serious games (SGs), have shown beneficial effects on learning in several studies. In addition, some studies are suggesting that SGs could ...improve user's perceived control, which affects the likelihood that the learned content will be applied in the real world. However, most SG studies tend to focus on immediate effects, providing no indication on knowledge and perceived control over time, especially in contrast with nongame approaches. Moreover, SG research on perceived control has focused mainly on self-efficacy, disregarding the complementary construct of locus of control (LOC). This article advances both lines of research, assessing user's knowledge and LOC over time, with a SG as well as traditional printed materials that teach the same content. Results show that the SG was more effective than printed materials for knowledge retention over time, and a better retention outcome was found also for LOC. An additional contribution of the paper is the proposal of a novel SG that targets the inclusivity goal of safe evacuation for all, extending SG research to a domain not dealt with before, i.e., assisting persons with disabilities in emergencies.
In this paper, we describe the results of an experimental study whose objective was twofold: (1) comparing three navigation aids that help users perform wayfinding tasks in desktop virtual ...environments (VEs) by pointing out the location of objects or places; (2) evaluating the effects of user experience with 3D desktop VEs on their effectiveness with the considered navigation aids. In particular, we compared navigation performance (in terms of total time to complete an informed search task) of 48 users divided into two groups: subjects in one group had experience in navigating 3D VEs while subjects in the other group did not. The experiment comprised four conditions that differed for the navigation aid that was employed. The first and the second condition, respectively, exploited 3D and 2D arrows to point towards objects that users had to reach; in the third condition, a radar metaphor was employed to show the location of objects in the VE; the fourth condition was a control condition with no location-pointing navigation aid available. The search task was performed both in a VE representing an outdoor geographic area and in an abstract VE that did not resemble any familiar environment. For each VE, users were also asked to order the four conditions according to their preference. Results show that the navigation aid based on 3D arrows outperformed (both in terms of user performance and user preference) the others, except in the case when it was used by experienced users in the geographic VE. In that case, it was as effective as the others. Finally, in the geographic VE, experienced users took significantly less time than inexperienced users to perform the informed search, while in the abstract VE the difference was significant only in the control and the radar conditions. From a more general perspective, our study highlights the need to take into specific consideration user experience in navigating VEs when designing navigation aids and evaluating their effectiveness.
Thanks to the increasing availability of consumer head-mounted displays, educational applications of immersive VR could now reach to the general public, especially if they include gaming elements ...(immersive serious games). Safety education of citizens could be a particularly promising domain for immersive serious games, because people tend not to pay attention to and benefit from current safety materials. In this paper, we propose an HMD-based immersive game for educating passengers about aviation safety that allows players to experience a serious aircraft emergency with the goal of surviving it. We compare the proposed approach to a traditional aviation safety education method (the safety card) used by airlines. Unlike most studies of VR for safety knowledge acquisition, we do not focus only on assessing learning immediately after the experience but we extend our attention to knowledge retention over a longer time span. This is a fundamental requirement, because people need to retain safety procedures in order to apply them when faced with danger. A knowledge test administered before, immediately after and one week after the experimental condition showed that the immersive serious game was superior to the safety card. Moreover, subjective as well as physiological measurements employed in the study showed that the immersive serious game was more engaging and fear-arousing than the safety card, a factor that can contribute to explain the obtained superior retention, as we discuss in the paper.
Recent VR head-mounted displays for consumers feature 3-DOF or 6-DOF head tracking. However, position tracking (when available) is limited to a small area. Moreover, in small or cluttered physical ...spaces, users can safely experience VR only by staying in place, standing or seated. Different locomotion techniques have been proposed to allow users to explore virtual environments by staying in place. Two in-place locomotion techniques, frequently employed in the literature and in consumer applications, are based on joystick and teleport. Some authors explored leaning with the aim of proposing a more natural in-place locomotion technique. However, more research is needed to understand the effects of the three techniques, since no user study thoroughly compared them all together on a variety of fundamental aspects. Therefore, this paper presents a comparative evaluation with 75 users, assessing the effects of the three techniques on performance, sickness, presence, usability, and different aspects of comfort. Performance of teleport was better than the other techniques, and performance of leaning was better than joystick. Teleport also caused less nausea than the other techniques. Unexpectedly, no significant differences were found for presence. Teleport received a higher usability score than the other techniques. Finally, the techniques had different effects on comfort that we discuss in detail.
The computational capabilities of today's smartphones make it possible to take advantage of mobile three-dimensional (3-D) maps to support navigation in the physical world. In particular, 3-D maps ...might be useful to facilitate indoor wayfinding in large and complex buildings, where the typical orientation cues (e.g., street names) and location tracking technologies that can be used outdoors are unavailable. The use of mobile 3-D maps for indoor wayfinding is still largely unexplored and research on how to best design such tools has been scarce to date. One overlooked but important design decision for 3-D maps concerns the perspective from which the map content should be displayed, with first-person and third-person perspectives being the two major options. This paper presents a user study involving wayfinding tasks in a large and complex building, comparing a mobile 3-D map with first-person perspective, a mobile 3-D map with third-person perspective, and a traditional mobile 2-D map. The first-person perspective shows the mobile 3-D map of the building from a floor-level egocentric point of view, whereas the third-person perspective shows the surroundings of the user from a fixed distance behind and above her position. Results of the study reveal that the mobile 3-D map with third-person perspective leads to shorter orientation time before walking, better clarity ratings, lower workload, mental demand and effort scores, and higher preference score compared to the mobile 3-D map with first-person perspective. Moreover, it leads to shorter orientation time before walking, better pleasantness ratings, lower mental demand scores, and higher preference score compared to the mobile 2-D map.
Serious games for safety education (SGSE) are a novel tool for preparing people to prevent and\or handle risky situations. Although several SGSE have been developed, design and evaluation methods for ...SGSE need to be better grounded in and guided by safety-relevant psychological theories. In particular, this paper focuses on threat appeals and the assessment of variables, such as safety locus of control, that influence human behavior in real risky situations. It illustrates how we took into account such models in the design and evaluation of "Learn to Brace", a first-of-its-kind serious game that deals with a major problem in aviation safety, i.e. the scarce effectiveness of the safety cards used by airlines. The study considered a sample of 48 users: half of them received instructions about the brace position through the serious game, the other half through a traditional safety card pictorial. Results showed that the serious game was much more effective than the traditional instructions both in terms of learning and of changing safety-relevant perceptions, especially safety locus of control and recommendation perception.
Background and Objective
To preserve cardiovascular health in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI), it is important to promote physical activity programs adapted to them. Home-based exercise ...programs allow patients to perform clinician-prescribed physical activity without going to a hospital. However, they make it difficult for the clinician to guide and monitor the patient. To face this issue, this paper proposes a novel smartphone-based mobile application (Fisiofriend), and evaluates its feasibility with a pilot study in a real clinical intervention.
Methods
Fourteen SCI male subjects were involved in a 6-weeks home-based intervention, based on upper limbs exercises: 7 subjects (APP group) used Fisiofriend, and 7 subjects used traditional pictorial instructions on paper (PAPER group). At the beginning (t1) and end (t2) of the study period, we measured: (i) biceps and triceps brachii strength and endurance parameters with an isokinetic dynamometer (Biodex System 4), (ii) O2 maximal consumption with a crank ergometer stress test (VO2000, Medgraphics). Moreover, we collected subjective data about subjects’ perception of the support (app or paper) in the home-based program.
Results
Physiological results were encouraging for both groups. Questionnaire data suggests a possible advantage of the app in terms of pleasantness, engagement and perception of positive effects. Practical clinical experience with the subjects and their informal reports highlighted which features of the app could be of particular benefit in real interventions, as we discuss in the paper.
Conclusions
The study showed the feasibility of using a mobile app in home-based exercise programs involving SCI patients. We discuss implications of introducing such kind of apps into clinical practice.
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