Presence is the psychological state of perceiving oneself as being in the VR. Studying factors that increase presence is crucial as it increases the benefits of virtual reality training. The higher...Show morePresence is the psychological state of perceiving oneself as being in the VR. Studying factors that increase presence is crucial as it increases the benefits of virtual reality training. The higher the degree of presence, the more people behave as in real life, which leads to improved skill learning. The present study examined the research question if there is an effect of vibro-tactile feedback on presence in virtual reality (VR). The hypotheses were that vibro-tactile feedback has an effect on presence and on its subscales, namely: being there, spatial presence, involvement and realness. In comparison to previous studies, this study uses vibro-tactile feedback delivered by a haptic vest, instead of force feedback. The experiment was one hour long and took place at TNO. Thirty-eight participants took part in the study. The participants were split into two conditions: the first condition received haptic feedback and the second did not receive haptic feedback. Both groups watched six 360VR videos and filled in one presence questionnaire after each video. Afterwards, the data was analysed with 5 ANCOVAs and 5 Bayesian ANCOVAs. The results showed no significant effect of vibro-tactile feedback on presence and its subscales in VR. The results highlight the importance of differentiating between vibro-tactile and haptic force feedback when studying the effect of haptic feedback on presence. Another implication is to include videos in which the participants associate sensational memory with. This indicates that the participants should have prior experience with the scenario in order to increase presence. Concluding, further studies must be conducted to clearly state that vibrotactile effect has no effect on presence.Show less
Contemporary police officers often lack a proper understanding of civilian’s mental states required to deliver an appropriate empathic response. Recently, virtual reality (VR) emerged as a...Show moreContemporary police officers often lack a proper understanding of civilian’s mental states required to deliver an appropriate empathic response. Recently, virtual reality (VR) emerged as a promising medium to promote empathy, offering several crucial advantages over traditional methods. However, as research is limited on VR empathy training, its effectiveness and practical utility for the police remains unclear. This study investigated the effectivity and utility of two VR empathy tools for the Dutch police force. In this study, 11 Dutch police officers were immersed in two simulations of the perspectives of a child victim of domestic violence (DV) and a person living with a mild intellectual disability (MID), in counterbalanced order. Results showed that, in line with the hypotheses, for the DV simulation, participants’ illusionary feeling of presence in the virtual world predicted their emotional involvement with the experience, and in turn, this emotional involvement predicted empathy towards victims of domestic violence. Contrary to the hypotheses, for the MID simulation, presence did not predict emotional involvement. Yet, in line with the hypotheses, emotional involvement did predict empathy towards people living with a mild intellectual disability. Combined with insights from post-simulation interviews, both VR empathy tools are concluded to be effective and useful for Dutch police empathy training. These findings highlight VR’s potential to shape scalable and standardardized training opportunities to support the complex role of contemporary policing. Future research could extend our approach by including a control group and by making a direct comparison between VR, traditional perspective-taking tasks, and roleplay empathy training.Show less
This study examined the interface design of an augmented reality (AR) system that was being developed by the Dutch Police Force to assist police officers on horseback in navigating unknown terrain....Show moreThis study examined the interface design of an augmented reality (AR) system that was being developed by the Dutch Police Force to assist police officers on horseback in navigating unknown terrain. The main research objective was to investigate the effect of visual notifications on the officers’ responsiveness to navigation-assisting stimuli (i.e. ‘user performance’). These stimuli consisted of buzzer sounds and direction indicators. Since navigation support was the primary goal of the interface, attention focused on navigation-supporting stimuli was regarded endogenous. Because information provision was a secondary goal, attention drawn to notifications was regarded exogenous. To investigate the influence of exogenous stimuli on the quality of endogenous information processing, a virtual environment was created. In this environment, ninety-nine participants walked both a route with notifications and a route without notifications. (Endogenous) response times of both conditions were compared to determine the effect of the exogenous stimuli. Subsequently, both the role of timing and the effect of endogenous-exogenous competition on travel speed were investigated. Several repeated measures analyses of variance have been conducted. Exogenous stimuli were found to have a significant negative effect on user performance, F(1,87) = 11.193, p = .001, η2 = .114. In addition, the range between approximately 600 and 1000 milliseconds before the appearance of endogenous stimuli is probably the region in which endogenous user performance starts to be prone to exogenous stimuli, F(1,9) = 10.005, p = .011, η2 = .526. Lastly, it turned out that notifications caused participants to run faster, F(1,86) = 8.162, p < .05, η2 = .087. This study showed that stimuli in AR interfaces can enhance the travel speed of users. This is a desirable effect, since it is important for police officers to arrive at their destination as quickly as possible. This study also showed that exogenous stimuli can decrease user performance, as a result of which they could jeopardize users and others in the (traffic) environment. However, this study also provided an indication of the timing range in which exogenous stimuli are most likely to cause this undesired effect. Based on this range, timing-related blockages of distracting stimuli can be built into AR systems in an effective and efficient way, through which the performance-reducing effect of exogenous stimuli could be avoided. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- In deze studie is onderzoek gedaan naar een ‘augmented reality’ (AR) navigatie systeem dat de politie wil gebruiken bij evenementen. Met de AR technologie kan door middel van een digitale bril een virtuele laag over het gezichtsveld van politieagenten worden geplaatst. Deze laag bestaat deels uit richtingaanwijzers en deels uit notificaties. Hierdoor kunnen politieagenten worden geholpen met het vinden van de weg en kunnen zij daarnaast worden geïnformeerd over de omgeving of noodsituaties. Het effect van notificaties op de ‘gebruikersprestatie’, die aan de hand van reactietijden is gemeten, stond centraal in dit onderzoek. Het idee hierachter is dat de gebruikersprestatie iets zegt over de mate waarin iemand zich kan concentreren op de richtingaanwijzers en het verkeer. Dit is onderzocht aan de hand van een virtuele omgeving, waarin participanten zowel een route met notificaties als een route zonder notificaties hebben gelopen. Het onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat de snelheid waarmee de participanten door de virtuele omgeving liepen door de notificaties werd verhoogd. Dit is een gewenst effect, omdat het in noodsituaties van belang is dat politieagenten snel ter plaatse zijn. Ook is gebleken dat het tonen van notificaties de gebruikersprestatie verlaagt, hetgeen een ongewenst effect is omdat het in het kader van de navigatiedoelstelling en de verkeersveiligheid belangrijk is dat politieagenten snel op richtingaanwijzers en hun omgeving kunnen reageren. Echter kwam uit het onderzoek ook naar voren dat de gebruikersprestatie minder sterk werd beïnvloed wanneer een notificatie minimaal 1000 milliseconden na een navigatie-ondersteunend signaal werd weergegeven dan wanneer een notificatie maximaal 600 milliseconden na een dergelijk signaal werd weergegeven. Dit resultaat stelt ontwerpers van AR-systemen in staat om te voorkomen dat notificaties de gebruikersprestatie verlagen, omdat zij op basis van deze informatie een specifiek kader hebben waarmee zij notificaties afhankelijk van hun timing tijdelijk kunnen blokkeren. Zo kan op een effectieve en efficiënte manier worden voorkomen dat agenten op kwetsbare momenten worden afgeleid, zonder dat dit ten koste gaat van tijdige communicatie van informatie die de agenten nodig hebben om hun overige taken uit te voeren.Show less
