Consideration of future consequences (CFC) is one of the constructs that make up future oriented thinking. Not much is known about how CFC is formed or how it can be changed. Previous studies show...Show moreConsideration of future consequences (CFC) is one of the constructs that make up future oriented thinking. Not much is known about how CFC is formed or how it can be changed. Previous studies show that CFC is negatively related to self-defeating behavior and positively related to goal achievement. The goal of the present study was to reestablish these relations with a more generalized definition of self-defeating behavior and goal achievement in different domains. Apart from this, the present study had the goal of determining whether CFC could be changed through a VR- or smartphone application over the course of three weeks. 193 first year students from Leiden University (92,7% female) participated in the study. The participants were divided among three conditions: a VR-condition, a smartphone app-condition and a control condition. At the start of the study, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring CFC and self-defeating behavior. In addition, all participants set goals for themselves to complete. The degree to which they had achieved these goals was measured after three weeks, along with a second measurement of CFC. It was found through a regression analysis that CFC showed a significant correlation with self-defeating behavior, meaning CFC predicted this behavior. A regression analysis between CFC and goal achievement showed no significant correlation, meaning that CFC did not predict goal achievement. Finally, a repeated measures ANOVA indicated that there was no significant improvement of CFC after three weeks of using the intervention. Although no significant difference was found, perhaps an intervention that is used for a longer time period or a domain specific intervention could yield more successful results in improving CFC. More research is needed in defining the underlying constructs of self-defeating behavior and goal achievement, as well as evaluating possible ways to stimulate awareness of future consequences.Show less
Human navigation is an ability central to many activities. A prevalent hypothesis for different navigation strategies is the cognitive maps hypothesis, which is a complex navigation strategy that...Show moreHuman navigation is an ability central to many activities. A prevalent hypothesis for different navigation strategies is the cognitive maps hypothesis, which is a complex navigation strategy that relies on survey knowledge of the environment and involves the formation of mental representations, allowing navigators to efficiently and flexibly navigate through different strategies to reach any target location. Learning plays a crucial role in the development of navigation abilities, with individual differences observed. This thesis aims to explore the relationship between learning and navigation performance in real-life and virtual environments among Mbendjele BaYaka children, a hunter-gatherer community from the Congo Basin that relies on daily navigation for collecting food and has little experience with technology. I will focus on travel speed, contributing to our understanding of the suitability of virtual reality (VR) for spatial navigation research. The virtual navigation experiment involved children playing a computer game to find and collect food items in a three-dimensional virtual environment. The real-life navigation experiment included partially the same children participating in a real-life honey-finding game. Both experiments have been set up to investigate different spatial skills and their impact on navigation performance among children ranging in age from 4 to 16. My research took advantage of the fact that certain navigation tasks in this experiment were identical, namely repeated returns to the same location. The research investigates the travel speed of children, using linear mixed models to analyse the effect of trial number on spatial learning while controlling for age and comparing their spatial performances in real and virtual environments. The results showed that trial number and session had different effects in each setting, and there was no correlation between real-life and virtual navigation performance. This shows that more research is needed to improve study design, to make environments more similar, and to make reward moments more congruent.Show less
The importance of VR technology is increasing in many fields, yet current literature regarding personal characteristics and their ability to influence VR experiences is very limited and ambiguous....Show moreThe importance of VR technology is increasing in many fields, yet current literature regarding personal characteristics and their ability to influence VR experiences is very limited and ambiguous. In order to have a better understanding of these dynamics, this study analyses the relationship between Sense of Presence and interaction with VR environments in relation to certain personal characteristics such as personality type and mental rotation ability. For this purpose, 22 participants are recruited to experience the presented virtual environment. They are able to interact with certain objects within it, for example by lifting them up and throwing them around. Each interaction is counted and their answers on the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) and a Mental Rotation task are measured. A correlational design is used and scores are analysed by means of multiple linear regression models. Results show no significant effects for any of the factors after correcting for multiple testing, however Neuroticism shows a positive pattern for Spatial Presence (p<.05) and Mental Rotation demonstrates a possible positive relation with Realism (p<.05). In conclusion, it is postulated that personal characteristics might play a role in feelings of presence in virtual spaces, however due to limited power and other methodological factors, significance was not reached. In alignment with our aim, this study aids in enriching the scarce literature that is currently available by presenting its own results and by further offering interesting clues for future research into the relationship (neuro)-psychological factors might have with our experiences of VR.Show less
Spatial cognition deficits can be caused by various factors including aging, neurodegenerative disease, stroke, or TBI, and have thus far received inadequate attention in the literature. This study...Show moreSpatial cognition deficits can be caused by various factors including aging, neurodegenerative disease, stroke, or TBI, and have thus far received inadequate attention in the literature. This study aims to further our understanding of spatial cognition in order to progress the field and assist in the assessment and diagnostics of associated deficits in affected populations. Research has outlined the practicality of VR in assessing cognitive complaints. VR can provide ecological validity to navigation assessments and can be used alongside neuropsychological tools to further understand cognitive deficits. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to investigate the relationships of presence and subjective navigation ability with objective navigation performance in VR, and to further examine the effect of gender on navigation performance. The van der Ham et al. (2020) online task battery was used to assess spatial navigation ability by requiring participants to complete five tasks testing landmark, location and path knowledge. The experiment was conducted online on a computer or phone screen. Sense of presence in the virtual environment and subjective navigation ability were measured using the IPQ (Schubert, Friedmann, and Regenbrecht, 2001) and the WQ (Claessen et al., 2016). A test-retest design was employed to investigate the gender differences in performance over time. The results of this study indicate that presence is not a significant predictor of navigation performance in the VR task. However, subjective navigation ability did predict objective navigation performance. Additionally, gender differences were found in performance over time, with males consistently performing better than females. These findings suggest a need to further investigate the different navigation mechanisms used by males and females, and the effect that stereotypical beliefs have on performance. In conclusion, this study determined that assessment of navigation abilities is not affected by experienced presence, and thus can be made accessible in an online format. The findings for gender differences and the relationship between subjective navigation ability and objective navigation performance also have the potential to contribute evidence-based improvements in assessments, diagnostics and rehabilitation interventions. Further research is required to investigate the effect of different levels of immersion on sense of presence and performance as this could affect VR assessment of navigation.Show less
Behavioral mimicry and pupil dilation have both been seen to have positive effects on liking and trust between people in social interactions. For people with social anxiety, however, this effect...Show moreBehavioral mimicry and pupil dilation have both been seen to have positive effects on liking and trust between people in social interactions. For people with social anxiety, however, this effect may be impaired due to their self-focused attention and fear of other’s judgments. We investigate the effects of pupil dilation mimicry on evaluation of and trust in virtual avatars in high and low socially anxious individuals. Participants interacted with six avatars who each told a story, during which the avatar’s pupil size was manipulated to dilate randomly or to mimic the participant’s pupil dilations. After each story, the participants answered questionnaires regarding liking and played an investment game to measure trust. Contrary to our predictions, the results yielded no between-group differences in the evaluation of- or trust in the avatars. The implications of this and the limitations to our study are discussed, and we offer recommendations for future research.Show less
Mimicry is the replication of another person’s behaviour and/or physiological state in short temporal succession of the original behaviour. It can be differentiated into autonomic mimicry and motor...Show moreMimicry is the replication of another person’s behaviour and/or physiological state in short temporal succession of the original behaviour. It can be differentiated into autonomic mimicry and motor mimicry, with the former denoting mimicry of autonomic nervous system activity such as heart rate, with visible behaviours such as blushing or pupil dilation, whereas motor mimicry is any mimicry of motor movements. Together, these two types of autonomic mimicry result in emotional mimicry, also called emotional contagion. The primary aspect of emotional mimicry is reciprocal evaluation, as people with positive affiliation towards each other exhibit it the most. However, socially anxious people have deficiencies in motor mimicry and do not prefer a mimicking partner. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether highly socially anxious people would evaluate virtual characters exhibiting autonomic mimicry less positively than low socially anxious individuals. Within the study, 29 people with different levels of social anxiety were exposed to autonomic mimicry through pupil dilation by three virtual characters telling three different stories, whilst three others told stories without mimicking the participants, but still exhibiting occasional pupil dilation. Comfortability around the characters was measured through the desire for future interaction scale, and liking through an avatar evaluation questionnaire. Two repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) and two mixed ANOVA were conducted and yielded no significant differences in evaluation between the mimicry conditions, nor any significant mediation of these differences by the social anxiety group, suggesting that differences in peoples’ evaluations of mimicry are primarily reserved to motor mimicry.Show less
Naarmate Virtual Reality (VR) toepassingen vindt in de entertainmentindustrie, gezondheidszorg en het onderwijs, heeft zij ook een plaats veroverd in de journalistiek. De potentie van zogenaamde...Show moreNaarmate Virtual Reality (VR) toepassingen vindt in de entertainmentindustrie, gezondheidszorg en het onderwijs, heeft zij ook een plaats veroverd in de journalistiek. De potentie van zogenaamde onderdompeljournalistiek is groot, waar de kijker zich met een VR-bril waant op de locatie van het nieuwsverhaal en zodoende immersie bereikt. Vooralsnog experimenteren Nederlandse en buitenlandse omroepen met de voornaamste verschijningsvorm van VR-journalistiek: 360-gradenvideo. Een geavanceerde camera met meerdere lenzen zorgt dat alles rondom wordt gefilmd, wat een panoramisch beeld creëert. Op deze manier kan 360-gradenjournalistiek in haar verslaglegging dichtbij de fysieke realiteit komen, waarbij de consument als ware een ooggetuige optreedt. De kijker voelt zich hierdoor mogelijk sterk emotioneel betrokken bij de gebeurtenis. Dit onderzoek stelt daarom de vraag: in hoeverre kan 360-gradenjournalistiek bijdragen aan een authentieke nieuwsbeleving voor de consument? Met ‘authentiek’ wordt gedoeld op een realistische en betrouwbare nieuwsvertelling waar de kijker zich emotioneel bij betrokken voelt. Hiervoor wordt een kwantitatieve user experience-analyse op basis van vragenlijsten gecombineerd met kwalitatieve interviews. De resultaten wijzen uit dat 360-gradenvideo tegen de verwachting in beperkte immersie bewerkstelligt. Willen kijkers zich al laten onderdompelen, dan is beeldkwaliteit het belangrijkst. In dat geval ervaren zij het nieuwsverhaal ook als realistisch. Door een gebrek aan controle voelt de kijker zich echter passief, en beschouwt het nieuwsverhaal in een panoramisch beeld niet per definitie als betrouwbaarder. De kracht van 360-gradenjournalistiek schuilt bovenal in de menselijke, emotionele connectie met betrokkenen bij de nieuwsgebeurtenis.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
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In dit onderzoek wordt de positie van virtual reality binnen het medialandschap onderzocht. Virtual reality wordt veelal gezien als een subgenre van de film, of een additief daarvan. De koppeling...Show moreIn dit onderzoek wordt de positie van virtual reality binnen het medialandschap onderzocht. Virtual reality wordt veelal gezien als een subgenre van de film, of een additief daarvan. De koppeling tussen virtual reality en film wordt als vanzelfsprekend beschouwd, maar is dat wel zo? Aan de hand van verschillende casussen en mediatheorieën wordt onderzocht in hoeverre virtual reality overeenkomsten vertoont met zustermedia als video en theater. Tenslotte wordt stilgestaan bij de vraag welke mogelijkheden het herdefiniëren van virtual reality als multimediaal instrument biedt voor de ontwikkelingen binnen de artistieke wereld.Show less
This thesis was designed to investigate the the uses of Virtual Reality technology within cultural heritage. Using a postmodern analysis, this thesis is both a document study and case study that...Show moreThis thesis was designed to investigate the the uses of Virtual Reality technology within cultural heritage. Using a postmodern analysis, this thesis is both a document study and case study that aims to inform, and help archivists and other cultural heritage specialists to contextualise themselves and their new digital environments. First, I establish why postmodernity is important to the archival profession by outlining its relevance to knowledge, technology, and the economy. I then describe Virtual Reality (VR) and the newly released and commercially available Head Mounted Display units (HMDs). This is followed by my case descriptions of Virtual Reality developers and developments, and a discussion of examples of VR’s current use in cultural heritage sites. I then move on to a discussion of archiving Virtual Reality. My thesis shows that Virtual Reality is no longer a promise, or something to work towards, but that it is presently here. The audio/visual illusion created by the currently available Virtual Reality hardware and software, has serious potential in the realm of cultural heritage learning. And this thesis argues towards an interdisciplinary method of creating cultural heritage content, with archivists, librarians, and museum curators teaming up with information technology and VR specialists to create, and store, their work. Appendix available at: https://miriammcbride93.wixsite.com/vrarchiveShow less
