Designing Virtual Training Environments: Does Immersion increase Task Performance?

Abstract

One of the main characteristics of virtual reality (VR) is immersion, which leads to comprehensive illusions of reality. Accordingly, VR is used in many applications like entertainment, marketing, and training. Especially in training applications, the effect of immersion on training success is still not entirely clear, since too much immersion may cause side effects such as users experiencing high mental demand whereas too little may disturb users' well-being. To further investigate the matter, we developed two virtual training environments, wherein users train a typical industrial assembly task either in low or high immersive VR. In a controlled pilot study, we additionally introduced a third condition, the control group, which justifies the necessity of the training. Immediately after the VR training session, each participant completed the corresponding real assembly task in which their performance was measured. Preliminary results from our pilot study show that participants trained in high immersive VR performed better, while negative side effects could not be detected.

Towards estimating affective states in Virtual Reality based on behavioral data

“…Utilizing behavioral data could also be used to shed new light on the correlation between presence and performance, which has been a controversial topic among VR researchers for decades (Barfield et al 1995). In particular, in the vocational use of VTEs, using behavioral data to predict performance would be immensely beneficial, since traditional alternatives are often laborious and costly (Gisler et al 2020). The fact that similar approaches for analyzing the usability of a VE yielded promising results (Schroeder et al 2006) should further motivate this endeavor.…”

Work-in-Progress-Enhancing Training in Virtual Reality with Hand Tracking and a Real Tool

“…smartphones or printed materials [8]) and investigated on training transfer to corresponding real tasks (e.g. tank maintenance procedures [9] or sequential assembly [2]). Further, the influence of certain immersive features on training effectiveness has been studied (e.g.…”

“…Further, the influence of certain immersive features on training effectiveness has been studied (e.g. vision [3], or interaction and navigation [2]). Beyond the industrial context, the integration of real objects in VTEs has been investigated, e.g.…”

“…Training industrial tasks virtually comes with a variety of benefits, such as avoiding the waste of real raw material, reduced risk of injury, as well as location and language independence. In this context, the degree of immersion plays a key role in achieving high training effectiveness and usability [1], [2]. The most straightforward way to reach higher degrees of immersion is to increase the visual fidelity (e.g.…”

Indicators of Training Success in Virtual Reality Using Head and Eye Movements

“…Virtual Training Environments (VTEs) gained popularity due to multiple reasons: i) they allow training personnel for hazardous procedures in a safe environment [3], ii) they allow training under fairly realistic conditions without the presence of trainers [18], iii) they provide a cost-efficient alternative to training in reality, since no real equipment and consumables are required [6], and iv) they allow for better assessment of training success and individualization of the VTE. This is important, since the performance of individuals varies considerably, and accounting for the ability of individual trainees might be helpful, as shown for Virtual Reality (VR) and other con-texts such as adjusting explanations to trainees' competencies [26].…”