A Comparison of Virtual and Physical Training Transfer of Bimanual Assembly Tasks

Abstract

As we explore the use of consumer virtual reality technology for training applications, there is a need to evaluate its validity compared to more traditional training formats. In this paper, we present a study that compares the effectiveness of virtual training and physical training for teaching a bimanual assembly task. In a between-subjects experiment, 60 participants were trained to solve three 3D burr puzzles in one of six conditions comprised of virtual and physical training elements. In the four physical conditions, training was delivered via paper- and video-based instructions, with or without the physical puzzles to practice with. In the two virtual conditions, participants learnt to assemble the puzzles in an interactive virtual environment, with or without 3D animations showing the assembly process. After training, we conducted immediate tests in which participants were asked to solve a physical version of the puzzles. We measured performance through success rates and assembly completion testing times. We also measured training times as well as subjective ratings on several aspects of the experience. Our results show that the performance of virtually trained participants was promising. A statistically significant difference was not found between virtual training with animated instructions and the best performing physical condition (in which physical blocks were available during training) for the last and most complex puzzle in terms of success rates and testing times. Performance in retention tests two weeks after training was generally not as good as expected for all experimental conditions. We discuss the implications of the results and highlight the validity of virtual reality systems in training.

Effects of Level of Immersion on Virtual Training Transfer of Bimanual Assembly Tasks

“…Complementing these previous studies (Oren et al, 2012;Carlson et al, 2015;Murcia-Lopez and Steed, 2018), our experiment used a similar experimental protocol (Murcia-Lopez and Steed, 2018) while using functional 3D-printed gearboxes as our assembly training targets, which better resembled actual assembly in production environments and still kept good control of task difficulty and certain level of abstraction. In addition, our experiment specifically examined the effects of different levels of immersion during the virtual training.…”

“…Note that unlike previous works (Oren et al, 2012;Carlson et al, 2015;Murcia-Lopez and Steed, 2018) that used a betweensubject experiment design to mitigate the learning effects. Our within-subject experiment design let the participant assemble different gearboxes for each training condition.…”

“…The size of virtual gearboxes and the interlocking nature of gears make the collision detection in Unity 3D unreliable. Instead, the application had a snap-to-fit mechanism (Carlson et al, 2015;Murcia-Lopez and Steed, 2018), which would snap a piece to its semi-transparent guide if they were close enough. More specifically, the application would snap the piece to its semi-transparent guide if the piece was entirely inside the bounding box of the guide, which is 5% larger in size, and the difference between their orientations was within 10°.…”

“…Previous works (Carlson et al, 2015;Murcia-Lopez and Steed, 2018) did not explicitly investigate virtual training with different levels of immersion. Instead, these works focused on the comparison between the effectiveness of virtual and physical training.…”

Immersive visual scripting based on VR software design patterns for experiential training

“…VR is characterized by highly immersive and interactive digital environments where user experiences another dimension of possibilities. As already known from conducted trials [2,17], the training capabilities of VR simulations offer skill transfer from the VR to real-life proposing an effective tool to fit in modern curricula. From pilots to surgeons, VR has a strong impact on training due to embodied cognition, psychomotor capabilities (dexterous use of hands) and high retention level [12].…”