Research Roundup (#3)
Welcome…
Welcome to the third-ever Research Roundup! A weekly catch-up on the latest developments in the field of XR research.
It’s been a busy week, so let's not hang around.
The Week in 3 (Sentences)
- Embodiment and illusions were getting attention this week, with researchers inducing out-of-body illusions with a HMD, recreating authentic touch experiences in VR, and examining the relationship between a sense of agency and the quality of memories.
- Advanced tracking and interaction were also getting attention, as researchers asked whether EEG signals could help detect incongruency in AR and whether hand redirection can be based on movement, eye gaze and EEG data.
- And…healthcare and accessibility were also under the microscope with new research on controlling phantom limbs, reducing substance use and violence, and modifying VR audio to increase accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The Week in 300 (Words)
How important is being touched in virtual environments? Very, argued researchers from Germany, Spain, Poland and the UAE as they investigated the importance of authentic touch. Participants in their study got either a visual experience of being touched by an avatar on the arm and back, or a visuo-tactile experience (with the tactile bit provided by the research team). Ratings of pleasantness and realness of the experience were gathered, alongside heart rate, embodiment and co-presence. The addition of the tactile experience proved important: participants found it pleasant, with an accompanying drop in heart rate. Much better than thoroughly unpleasant and being scared witless! It could have happened.
Over in the world of BCI it was time to ask whether physiological signals could guide hand redirection, a cool little trick that allows for sensations of haptic feedback without real objects. Previous researchers have simulated different weights, stiffness, and resistance of virtual objects based on visual information alone. However, the adjustment requires intensive psychophysical measurements that are difficult to achieve on scale. Here, the researchers explored whether movement, eye gaze and EEG data could be used instead. Although imperfect, the data suggested that the signals could be used in a limited form. Particularly exciting given movement and eye gaze are so easily tracked (EEG not so much).
And finally, the world of XR healthcare turned its attention to phantom-limb pain. If you ever have a limb amputated you are likely to experience different types of pain from where the limb had been. Treating phantom limb pain is difficult, but researchers have had some success with patients making movements with a virtual limb using muscle contractions in the residual limb. Here researchers reported qualitative data, from a recent RCT, with patients on the whole having a more positive attitude towards their phantom limb, learning to control it, and perceiving it as more complete. For most there were positive effects on wellbeing such as sleep, energy and general quality of life.
Paper of the Week
Our paper of the week this week is again a review paper but this time about the use of questionnaires in VR research. Whilst some modern research makes use of fancy measures, such as EEG, the majority of participants are still filling out questionnaires (or having interviews). This paper neatly summarises the existing measures.
Unsurprisingly, they found a wide array of different measures when systematically scraping the literature. They identified 26 different measures of presence, 15 of user experience, and 6 different measures of motion sickness. They also found questionnaires for immersion, embodiment, and simulator realism, as well as the very specific virtual therapist alliance.
The most helpful section of the paper though is the final recommendations. These present key questionnaires for each category based on the number and clarity of the items, psychometric properties, and current usage. The recommendations are handily divided by whether you want something quick to administer or something more in-depth. Table 1 is now our favourite table of all time, for this week at least.
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