Research Roundup (#6)
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Welcome...
Welcome to the sixth-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)
New user research has explored key requirements for realistic HMD visuals, whilst a large scale survey about smart glasses revealed a striking divide between owner positivity and non-owner privacy concerns.
Training applications continue to show mixed results, with VR-based language learning demonstrating some benefits, and maritime training finding no advantage, whilst researchers have suggested that walking versus teleportation methods had no significant impact on the learning of facts in VR.
And finally, VR continues to make great strides in clinical contexts with studies demonstrating improvements in the social skills of children with ADHD, exploring empathy among medical students working with depression, and new methods for assessing Post-COVID syndrome symptoms.
The Week in 300 (words)
We all know that field of view is important but have you ever wondered what that number needs to be? Researchers from Tokyo this week suggested that 240° is the magic number considerably lower than the 310° you might find in the literature. They contended that previous estimates were oversimplified because they relied on the eyes being in a fixed position. Using more naturalistic methods, that accounted for eye movements, they revised this down to a much more palatable 240°. Still a fair way from the 90° in consumer headsets, but there are some high end ones out there that touch this magic number.
Researchers in the US and China reported significant results using Immerse to teach Chinese students English. Pre- and post-test results demonstrated clear gains in fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. With no control group it is unclear how these gains would measure up against more traditional methods, or any other alternatives. At the very least it worked, which is an important step in the right direction.
And finally, the empathy machine keeps on rolling forward. This time medical students have been trained to have empathy for people with depression. Participants experienced a 'day in the life' of a medical student from a first person perspective. The intervention group had features built in to represent the different dimensions of depression, whilst the control group didn't. Small but statistically significant improvements in two dimensions of empathy were found (compassionate care and perspective taking), with the opposite pattern in the third (standing in the patients shoes), creating no difference in the overall measure. The level of control and design was great, but clearly indicates there may be complexity here that needs teasing apart.
Paper of the Week
This week we're paying tribute to the sterling efforts of Panagiotis Kourtesis and his comprehensive review of XR applications.
We can attest to the fact that XR applications have expanded rapidly, and widely, over the last five years. From virtual meetings to virtual museums, and everything in-between. Unless you read the XR Research Digest, it's impossible to keep up.
Panagiotis does an amazing job pulling it together in such a systematic and rigorous way. Particularly important is the review of the challenges that applications of XR face. These include (not exclusively): cybersickness; addiction; dissociation; bullying; manipulation; inequalities; and the ubiquitous data privacy concerns.
The comprehensive nature of this paper should prove to be an invaluable resource for anyone developing an XR application, funding one, or implementing one. A very worthy paper of the week.
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