Simulating cooperative fire evacuation training in a virtual environment using gaming technology

Prospective Teachers’ Likelihood of Performing Unethical Behaviors in the Real and Virtual Environments

Developing a virtual 3D environment by using game engine is a strategy to incorporate various multimedia data into one platform. The characteristic of game engine that is preinstalled with interactive and navigation tools allows users to explore and engage with the game objects. However, most CAD and GIS applications are not equipped with 3D tools and navigation systems intended to the user experience. In particular, 3D game engines provide standard 3D navigation tools as well as any programmable view to create engaging navigation thorough the virtual environment. By using a game engine, it is possible to create other interaction such as object manipulation, non playing character (NPC) interaction with player and/or environment. We conducted analysis on previous game engines and experiment on urban design project with Unity3D game engine for visualization and interactivity. At the end, we present the advantages and limitations using game technology as visual representation tool for architecture and urban design studies.

Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are a vital part of computer games. Their behaviour is usually pre determined by the developers before a computer game is released. While these NPCs exist in a virtual environment in which they aim to achieve their objectives, these objectives might involve certain actions which should be both believable and add realism to games. In internet gameplay, these may range from navigation of the environment, attack and defense of an objective or assisting other NPCs or human players to achieve their goals. Various forms of decision making process are now implemented to provide believability and realism to games. These techniques range from reinforcement learning, imitation learning, supervised and unsupervised learning for online and offline games. While these are widely implemented, a new genre of realism is being added to games especially first person shooter games, namely Smart Terrains with virtual destructive environments. Smart Terrain has the potential to improve the realism of games and the behavior of the NPC in games such as first person shooter games where gameplay is fast paced. The potential issue would be if NPCs are dynamic enough to recognize changes in the virtual environment or if the virtual environment provides the required information to assist the NPCs with their objectives or tasks. This paper presents an overview of Smart Terrain in enhancing Online Tactic Agent decision making.

Objective: The subject matter of this study focuses on the comparison of user behaviour in the real world and the virtual world, with special emphasis on the phenomenon of user identity dissociation. This dissociation refers to the ability of individuals to separate or distort their real identity when interacting in digital environments. Methodology: The methodology will consist of a systematic literature review, collecting and analysing relevant previous studies to extract patterns and conclusions about user behaviour and identity dissociation in virtual environments. Results: User behaviour in virtual environments shares patterns with the real world but differs in the frequency and combination of responses. Identity dissociation in virtual spaces, driven by anonymity and lack of nonverbal cues, can lead to antisocial behaviours and impulsive decision-making. This negatively impacts platforms by reducing user satisfaction and damaging their credibility. Limitations: The study’s limitations include a small document sample, a short research timeframe and the potential exclusion of relevant documents due to the selected databases, indicating a need for further research. Practical implications: This study provides technology professionals, especially in virtual realities and the metaverse, with insights to improve company outcomes, marketing and communication strategies by enhancing platform design, regulatory policies and audience engagement. Specifically, integrating adaptive feedback systems and immersive storytelling can enhance user satisfaction and brand loyalty.

CHI Systems, under contract to the U. S. Army Research Institute, developed an immersive training system, called Virtual Environment Composable Training for Operational Readiness Training Delivery (VECTOR-TD), which provides scenario-based virtual environments for cultural familiarization. VECTOR-TD was designed to provide a new technology for game-based training in cultural familiarization through the application of scenario-based training. VECTOR-TD integrates the Lithtech Jupiter game engine for the virtual environment and CHI System’s iGEN® cognitive agent development toolkit to implement intelligent game characters and integrated performance monitoring. In order for VECTOR-TD to have true long term value to the Army, it was determined that it would be necessary to develop content management tools which would allow Army training personnel to edit and author VECTOR-TD scenarios. To address this, VECTOR-Scenario Editor (VECTOR-SE) was developed based on VECTOR-TD XML-based scripting language to externalize the representation of the training scenario, the behavior of non-player characters (NPCs) within the scenario, and the behavior of the instructor NPC responsible for performance evaluation and After Action Review (AAR). The XML-based language provides direct control of the behavior, dialog, emotional state, and predispositions of NPCs within the scenario. VECTOR-SE was successfully developed to provide content development and management tools that allow non-programmers to author scenarios and manipulate training parameters. VECTOR-SE is based on an instructional design process model and involves the specification of learning objectives, the creation of scenario segments (i.e., vignettes), the authoring of character/trainee dialog, the designation of dialog branching, the placement of characters at game locations, and the designation of when training assistance/remediation will be delivered. The significance of VECTOR-SE is twofold. First, it drastically reduces the time and skill required to develop VECTOR scenarios. Within the original VECTOR project, a 15-minute cultural training scenario was developed which required 2 months of programming and cognitive modeling effort. The same scenario was later implemented in VECTOR-SE in under 3 days. Additional scenarios with comparable complexity have also been implemented using VECTOR-SE and similar significant reductions in development time have been observed. Second, VECTOR-SE makes scenario development or modification accessible to a wider audience of professionals. VECTOR-TD and SE are currently being evaluated at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

For the last few decades, there was tremendous interest in harnessing 3D virtual environments for education and training. Multi-user game-like environments make use of non-player characters and quest activities in tutoring and training. This approach incorporates successful active learning and incremental progress. This article presents issues encountered while adapting the multi-user online game genre for educational virtual environments. In this endeavour, non-player characters play a central role in organising and delivering educational content. Educational virtual environments call for additional kinds of extension beyond generic user content creation as delivered in some virtual worlds like Second Life. Support for these environments will emphasise the creation of new activities. A set of libraries and techniques named portable non-player character tutors and quests reduces the effort needed to develop and integrate educational non-player characters. These non-player characters are introduced in CVE, a platform for rapidly developing educational virtual environments. The portable non-player character tutors and quests framework enables formatted web-based exercises, quizzes, and educational content to be incorporated into virtual worlds, reducing the effort needed to create new content. The framework presented in this article introduces initial non-player characters that support educational quest activities to the 3D environments users.

In immersive Virtual Reality systems, users tend to move in a Virtual Environment as they would in an analogous physical environment. In this work, we investigated how user behaviour is affected when the Virtual Environment differs from the physical space. We created two sets of four environments each, plus a virtual replica of the physical environment as a baseline. The first focused on aesthetic discrepancies, such as a water surface in place of solid ground. The second focused on mixing immaterial objects together with those paired to tangible objects. For example, barring an area with walls or obstacles. We designed a study where participants had to reach three waypoints laid out in such a way to prompt a decision on which path to follow based on the conflict between the mismatching visual stimuli and their awareness of the real layout of the room. We analysed their performances to determine whether their trajectories were altered significantly from the shortest route. Our results indicate that participants altered their trajectories in presence of surfaces representing higher walking difficulty (for example, water instead of grass). However, when the graphical appearance was found to be ambiguous, there was no significant trajectory alteration. The environments mixing immaterial with physical objects had the most impact on trajectories with a mean deviation from the shortest route of 60 cm against the 37 cm of environments with aesthetic alterations. The co-existance of paired and unpaired virtual objects was reported to support the idea that all objects participants saw were backed by physical props. From these results and our observations, we derive guidelines on how to alter user movement behaviour in Virtual Environments.

In recent years, computer technology has evolved such that highly realistic virtual environments (VEs) can be used within a lab setting. Such VEs provide controlled ability to examine behavioral performance across different populations. The primary goal of this investigation was to examine the ability of mild cognitive impaired (MCI) participants to navigate effectively through a realistic, fictional virtual city. A total of 26 healthy control participants (age: 69 ± 7.7 years; Mini-Mental State Examination, MMSE ≥ 29) and 8 MCI patients (age: 72 ± 7 years, MMSE ≥ 26) were recruited. Both groups exhibited similar spatial-navigation ability. However, the MCI groups' ability to use effective visually guided navigation to traverse the VE was significantly compromised compared to healthy controls; a similar performance reduction was also observed when selecting appropriate paths. Though initially groups appear practically indistinguishable in regard to spatially navigating their way through the VE, these data indicate that careful evaluations of behavior in VEs may provide novel ways to differentiate between populations that have historically displayed relatively subtle differences.

We analyze the impact of the delay between the sensors and the visualization on the performance at a catching task in virtual environment. Testers have been asked to interact with a virtual environment displayed on a 2D screen in front of them, catching, with the virtual hand, virtual balls falling from the top of the screen. Two thresholds have been inferred: a behavioral threshold delay beyond which the behavioral organization is sensibly affected and a performance threshold delay beyond which task performance begins to worsen. We found a drop in performance when the total delay is over 70-80 ms, yet without significant changes in the organization of successful catches. Although the presence of a threshold on behavior is still to be further investigated, these two thresholds give a practical indication for the design and the validation of virtual reality based training systems. This is especially important in the context of training human skills in virtual environment: in particular to assess the quality of a training platform simulating the three ball cascade juggling pattern.

The design of virtual environments (VEs) can strongly influence users’ emotions. These VEs are also an important aspect of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) exergames – training system that can inspire athletes to train in a highly motivated way and achieve a higher training intensity. VR-based training and rehabilitation systems can increase a user’s motivation to train and to repeat physical exercises. The surrounding VE can potentially predominantly influence users’ motivation and hence potentially even physical performance. Besides providing potentially motivating environments, physical training can be enhanced by gamification. However, it is unclear whether the surrounding VE of a VR-based physical training system influences the effectiveness of gamification. We investigate whether an emotional positive or emotional negative design influences the sport performance and interacts with the positive effects of gamification. In a user study, we immerse participants in VEs following either an emotional positive, neutral, or negative design and measure the duration the participants can hold a static strength-endurance exercise. The study targeted the investigation of the effects of (1) emotional VE design as well as the (2) presence and absence of gamification. We did not observe significant differences in the performance of the participants independent of the conditions of VE design or gamification. Gamification caused a dominating effect on emotion and motivation over the emotional design of the VEs, thus indicating an overall positive impact. The emotional design influenced the participants’ intrinsic motivation but caused mixed results with respect to emotion. Overall, our results indicate the importance of using gamification and support the commonly used emotional positive VEs for physical training. They further indicate that the design space could also include other emotional directions of VE design.

Durlach et al. (2000) outlined a research program for the use of virtual environments (VEs) to train spatial abilities, and have invited comments. Our perspective is that some of the problems facing researchers in VE navigation, and also perceptual-motor skills, stem from the possibility that psychological processes that underlie navigation and motor skills in real and in virtual environments may be somewhat different. VE users may then have to make use of different strategies and abilities to those that they would normally use to manually manipulate and to navigate around the world. We suggest that such differences may arise because, when performing VE motor skills and navigation, the subject is effectively disembodied.

How can we increase awareness and understanding of other cultures using interactive online digital visualizations of past civilizations? In order to answer the above question, this chapter first questions the success of current virtual environments and asks whether they are capable of producing a platform that supports the experience and understanding of place-inscribed culture. To answer this question, a typology of successful virtual environment applications is suggested. These include online communities, virtual realityVirtual environmentVirtual Reality (VR) travel websites, game engines, virtual reality used for training, and virtual reality used as part of therapeutic means to either relax or divert patients, or to cure phobiasPhobias. Impeding the success of virtual environments in terms of technological constraints, lack of evaluation techniques and results, and a lack of content-specific applications that best utilize desktop computing capabilities and respond to user needs. It suggests that much more work needs to be done on not just usable but also useful content. Specifically, there is a large gap in knowledge on what might constitute useful and appropriate virtual travel environments, and how contextual interaction may affect our cultural understanding in these environments.

Engineering Analytics (EA) is a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates tools and techniques from fields such as Big Data, Machine Learning (ML), operations research, and statistics to analyze data and extract meaningful insights. Within the field of Industrial Engineering, EA is widely utilized to design, improve, and optimize integrated systems. This study focuses on the application of EA in combination with Virtual Reality (VR) and Electroencephalography (EEG) to explore various aspects of human cognitive performance, including attention, simulation sickness, and verbal-visual ability. By employing EA, VR, and EEG together, this research aims to provide a deeper understanding of how individuals interact within virtual environments and respond to cognitive and physiological challenges. Participants in the study were placed in immersive 3D virtual environments, where both subjective feedback and objective brainwave data were collected to measure their responses. The analysis involved identifying relationships between cognitive performance metrics and physiological signals to gain insights into human behavior and decision-making processes. The integration of EA techniques allowed for the exploration of complex patterns and relationships within the data, offering a comprehensive view of participants' mental states and performance. The study highlights the potential of combining EA, VR, and EEG to advance our understanding of human cognition and behavior in virtual environments. These insights can be applied to improve the design of virtual systems, enhance user experiences, and optimize applications in various fields, such as training, simulation, and education. By bridging cutting-edge technological tools with physiological data, this research demonstrates the value of a multidisciplinary approach to addressing challenges in human-computer interaction and cognitive performance.

The purpose of this research was to illustrate the broad usefulness of simple video-game-based virtual environments (VEs) for psychological research on real-world behavior. To this end, this research explored several high-level social phenomena in a simple, inexpensive computer-game environment: the reduced likelihood of helping under time pressure and the bystander effect, which is reduced helping in the presence of bystanders. In the first experiment, participants had to find the exit in a virtual labyrinth under either high or low time pressure. They encountered rooms with and without virtual bystanders, and in each room, a virtual person requested assistance. Participants helped significantly less frequently under time pressure but the presence/absence of a small number of bystanders did not significantly moderate helping. The second experiment increased the number of virtual bystanders, and participants were instructed to imagine that these were real people. Participants helped significantly less in rooms with large numbers of bystanders compared to rooms with no bystanders, thus demonstrating a bystander effect. These results indicate that even sophisticated high-level social behaviors can be observed and experimentally manipulated in simple VEs, thus implying the broad usefulness of this paradigm in psychological research as a good compromise between experimental control and ecological validity.

This work is conducted within the framework of experimental philosophy and represents a comprehensive study that combines theoretical and practical aspects. It integrates a phenomenological approach with natural science methods to study the phenomenology of virtual experience. The research posits that virtual reality (VR) emerges only at the moment of the self-revelation of being “to the entity” as a result of human interaction with technologies that create sensory impressions. The author analyzes the current state of technologies producing virtual reality, with particular attention to proprioceptive sensations. It is emphasized that the physical body continues to play an important role in the perception of virtual reality, as VR technologies are not yet sufficiently integrated with the complex proprioception system of the human body. Furthermore, the vestibular system retains its functionality regardless of whether the user is in the real or virtual world. These factors indicate that the physical body remains significant; even in virtual reality, a person remains inseparably connected to it. The author’s concept of the field behavior of virtual reality is presented, opening new perspectives for understanding human interaction with the virtual environment. The author highlights the field interference of the real and the virtual, the superposition of real and virtual components in the perception of virtual reality by humans, combined by the human brain into a single perception. The result of the study is a constructed model of probabilistic dependencies between elements of immersion and metrics of phenomenological experience. This work contributes to the development of interdisciplinary research and is important for experimental philosophy, providing a methodological basis for the empirical study of philosophical questions and the analysis of complex interrelations between immersion and human behavior in virtual environments.