TY - JOUR A1 - Loh, Frank A1 - Poignée, Fabian A1 - Wamser, Florian A1 - Leidinger, Ferdinand A1 - Hoßfeld, Tobias T1 - Uplink vs. Downlink: Machine Learning-Based Quality Prediction for HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming JF - Sensors N2 - Streaming video is responsible for the bulk of Internet traffic these days. For this reason, Internet providers and network operators try to make predictions and assessments about the streaming quality for an end user. Current monitoring solutions are based on a variety of different machine learning approaches. The challenge for providers and operators nowadays is that existing approaches require large amounts of data. In this work, the most relevant quality of experience metrics, i.e., the initial playback delay, the video streaming quality, video quality changes, and video rebuffering events, are examined using a voluminous data set of more than 13,000 YouTube video streaming runs that were collected with the native YouTube mobile app. Three Machine Learning models are developed and compared to estimate playback behavior based on uplink request information. The main focus has been on developing a lightweight approach using as few features and as little data as possible, while maintaining state-of-the-art performance. KW - HTTP adaptive video streaming KW - quality of experience prediction KW - machine learning Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-241121 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 21 IS - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Unruh, Fabian A1 - Landeck, Maximilian A1 - Oberdörfer, Sebastian A1 - Lugrin, Jean-Luc A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich T1 - The Influence of Avatar Embodiment on Time Perception - Towards VR for Time-Based Therapy JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality N2 - Psycho-pathological conditions, such as depression or schizophrenia, are often accompanied by a distorted perception of time. People suffering from this conditions often report that the passage of time slows down considerably and that they are “stuck in time.” Virtual Reality (VR) could potentially help to diagnose and maybe treat such mental conditions. However, the conditions in which a VR simulation could correctly diagnose a time perception deviation are still unknown. In this paper, we present an experiment investigating the difference in time experience with and without a virtual body in VR, also known as avatar. The process of substituting a person’s body with a virtual body is called avatar embodiment. Numerous studies demonstrated interesting perceptual, emotional, behavioral, and psychological effects caused by avatar embodiment. However, the relations between time perception and avatar embodiment are still unclear. Whether or not the presence or absence of an avatar is already influencing time perception is still open to question. Therefore, we conducted a between-subjects design with and without avatar embodiment as well as a real condition (avatar vs. no-avatar vs. real). A group of 105 healthy subjects had to wait for seven and a half minutes in a room without any distractors (e.g., no window, magazine, people, decoration) or time indicators (e.g., clocks, sunlight). The virtual environment replicates the real physical environment. Participants were unaware that they will be asked to estimate their waiting time duration as well as describing their experience of the passage of time at a later stage. Our main finding shows that the presence of an avatar is leading to a significantly faster perceived passage of time. It seems to be promising to integrate avatar embodiment in future VR time-based therapy applications as they potentially could modulate a user’s perception of the passage of time. We also found no significant difference in time perception between the real and the VR conditions (avatar, no-avatar), but further research is needed to better understand this outcome. KW - virtual reality KW - time perception KW - avatar embodiment KW - immersion KW - human computer interaction (HCI) Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259076 VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wienrich, Carolin A1 - Komma, Philipp A1 - Vogt, Stephanie A1 - Latoschik, Marc E. T1 - Spatial Presence in Mixed Realities – Considerations About the Concept, Measures, Design, and Experiments JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality N2 - Plenty of theories, models, measures, and investigations target the understanding of virtual presence, i.e., the sense of presence in immersive Virtual Reality (VR). Other varieties of the so-called eXtended Realities (XR), e.g., Augmented and Mixed Reality (AR and MR) incorporate immersive features to a lesser degree and continuously combine spatial cues from the real physical space and the simulated virtual space. This blurred separation questions the applicability of the accumulated knowledge about the similarities of virtual presence and presence occurring in other varieties of XR, and corresponding outcomes. The present work bridges this gap by analyzing the construct of presence in mixed realities (MR). To achieve this, the following presents (1) a short review of definitions, dimensions, and measurements of presence in VR, and (2) the state of the art views on MR. Additionally, we (3) derived a working definition of MR, extending the Milgram continuum. This definition is based on entities reaching from real to virtual manifestations at one time point. Entities possess different degrees of referential power, determining the selection of the frame of reference. Furthermore, we (4) identified three research desiderata, including research questions about the frame of reference, the corresponding dimension of transportation, and the dimension of realism in MR. Mainly the relationship between the main aspects of virtual presence of immersive VR, i.e., the place-illusion, and the plausibility-illusion, and of the referential power of MR entities are discussed regarding the concept, measures, and design of presence in MR. Finally, (5) we suggested an experimental setup to reveal the research heuristic behind experiments investigating presence in MR. The present work contributes to the theories and the meaning of and approaches to simulate and measure presence in MR. We hypothesize that research about essential underlying factors determining user experience (UX) in MR simulations and experiences is still in its infancy and hopes this article provides an encouraging starting point to tackle related questions. KW - mixed reality KW - virtual-reality-continuum KW - spatial presence KW - place-illusion KW - plausibility-illusion KW - transportation KW - realism Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260328 VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Qi, Yanyan A1 - Bruch, Dorothee A1 - Krop, Philipp A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. A1 - Latoschik, Marc E. A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Hein, Grit T1 - Social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender, social concern, and the presence of real vs virtual agents JF - Translational Psychiatry N2 - The presence of a partner can attenuate physiological fear responses, a phenomenon known as social buffering. However, not all individuals are equally sociable. Here we investigated whether social buffering of fear is shaped by sensitivity to social anxiety (social concern) and whether these effects are different in females and males. We collected skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings of female and male participants when they experienced aversive and neutral sounds alone (alone treatment) or in the presence of an unknown person of the same gender (social treatment). Individual differences in social concern were assessed based on a well-established questionnaire. Our results showed that social concern had a stronger effect on social buffering in females than in males. The lower females scored on social concern, the stronger the SCRs reduction in the social compared to the alone treatment. The effect of social concern on social buffering of fear in females disappeared if participants were paired with a virtual agent instead of a real person. Together, these results showed that social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender and social concern. In females, the presence of virtual agents can buffer fear, irrespective of individual differences in social concern. These findings specify factors that shape the social modulation of human fear, and thus might be relevant for the treatment of anxiety disorders. KW - human behaviour KW - physiology Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-265782 VL - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yuan, Yijun A1 - Borrmann, Dorit A1 - Hou, Jiawei A1 - Ma, Yuexin A1 - Nüchter, Andreas A1 - Schwertfeger, Sören T1 - Self-Supervised point set local descriptors for Point Cloud Registration JF - Sensors N2 - Descriptors play an important role in point cloud registration. The current state-of-the-art resorts to the high regression capability of deep learning. However, recent deep learning-based descriptors require different levels of annotation and selection of patches, which make the model hard to migrate to new scenarios. In this work, we learn local registration descriptors for point clouds in a self-supervised manner. In each iteration of the training, the input of the network is merely one unlabeled point cloud. Thus, the whole training requires no manual annotation and manual selection of patches. In addition, we propose to involve keypoint sampling into the pipeline, which further improves the performance of our model. Our experiments demonstrate the capability of our self-supervised local descriptor to achieve even better performance than the supervised model, while being easier to train and requiring no data labeling. KW - point cloud registration KW - descriptors KW - self-supervised learning Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-223000 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 21 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kern, Florian A1 - Kullmann, Peter A1 - Ganal, Elisabeth A1 - Korwisi, Kristof A1 - Stingl, René A1 - Niebling, Florian A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich T1 - Off-The-Shelf Stylus: Using XR Devices for Handwriting and Sketching on Physically Aligned Virtual Surfaces JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality N2 - This article introduces the Off-The-Shelf Stylus (OTSS), a framework for 2D interaction (in 3D) as well as for handwriting and sketching with digital pen, ink, and paper on physically aligned virtual surfaces in Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR, AR, MR: XR for short). OTSS supports self-made XR styluses based on consumer-grade six-degrees-of-freedom XR controllers and commercially available styluses. The framework provides separate modules for three basic but vital features: 1) The stylus module provides stylus construction and calibration features. 2) The surface module provides surface calibration and visual feedback features for virtual-physical 2D surface alignment using our so-called 3ViSuAl procedure, and surface interaction features. 3) The evaluation suite provides a comprehensive test bed combining technical measurements for precision, accuracy, and latency with extensive usability evaluations including handwriting and sketching tasks based on established visuomotor, graphomotor, and handwriting research. The framework’s development is accompanied by an extensive open source reference implementation targeting the Unity game engine using an Oculus Rift S headset and Oculus Touch controllers. The development compares three low-cost and low-tech options to equip controllers with a tip and includes a web browser-based surface providing support for interacting, handwriting, and sketching. The evaluation of the reference implementation based on the OTSS framework identified an average stylus precision of 0.98 mm (SD = 0.54 mm) and an average surface accuracy of 0.60 mm (SD = 0.32 mm) in a seated VR environment. The time for displaying the stylus movement as digital ink on the web browser surface in VR was 79.40 ms on average (SD = 23.26 ms), including the physical controller’s motion-to-photon latency visualized by its virtual representation (M = 42.57 ms, SD = 15.70 ms). The usability evaluation (N = 10) revealed a low task load, high usability, and high user experience. Participants successfully reproduced given shapes and created legible handwriting, indicating that the OTSS and it’s reference implementation is ready for everyday use. We provide source code access to our implementation, including stylus and surface calibration and surface interaction features, making it easy to reuse, extend, adapt and/or replicate previous results (https://go.uniwue.de/hci-otss). KW - virtual reality KW - augmented reality KW - handwriting KW - sketching KW - stylus KW - user interaction KW - usability evaluation KW - passive haptic feedback Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260219 VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Oberdörfer, Sebastian A1 - Birnstiel, Sandra A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich A1 - Grafe, Silke T1 - Mutual Benefits: Interdisciplinary Education of Pre-Service Teachers and HCI Students in VR/AR Learning Environment Design JF - Frontiers in Education N2 - The successful development and classroom integration of Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) learning environments requires competencies and content knowledge with respect to media didactics and the respective technologies. The paper discusses a pedagogical concept specifically aiming at the interdisciplinary education of pre-service teachers in collaboration with human-computer interaction students. The students’ overarching goal is the interdisciplinary realization and integration of VR/AR learning environments in teaching and learning concepts. To assist this approach, we developed a specific tutorial guiding the developmental process. We evaluate and validate the effectiveness of the overall pedagogical concept by analyzing the change in attitudes regarding 1) the use of VR/AR for educational purposes and in competencies and content knowledge regarding 2) media didactics and 3) technology. Our results indicate a significant improvement in the knowledge of media didactics and technology. We further report on four STEM learning environments that have been developed during the seminar. KW - interdisciplinary education KW - virtual reality KW - augmented reality KW - serious games KW - learning environments KW - teacher education Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-241612 SN - 2504-284X VL - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Winter, Carla A1 - Kern, Florian A1 - Gall, Dominik A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Käthner, Ivo T1 - Immersive virtual reality during gait rehabilitation increases walking speed and motivation: a usability evaluation with healthy participants and individuals with multiple sclerosis and stroke JF - Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation N2 - Background: The rehabilitation of gait disorders in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and stroke is often based on conventional treadmill training. Virtual reality (VR)-based treadmill training can increase motivation and improve therapy outcomes. The present study evaluated an immersive virtual reality application (using a head-mounted display, HMD) for gait rehabilitation with patients to (1) demonstrate its feasibility and acceptance and to (2) compare its short-term effects to a semi-immersive presentation (using a monitor) and a conventional treadmill training without VR to assess the usability of both systems and estimate the effects on walking speed and motivation. Methods: In a within-subjects study design, 36 healthy participants and 14 persons with MS or stroke participated in each of the three experimental conditions (VR via HMD, VR via monitor, treadmill training without VR). Results: For both groups, the walking speed in the HMD condition was higher than in treadmill training without VR and in the monitor condition. Healthy participants reported a higher motivation after the HMD condition as compared with the other conditions. Importantly, no side effects in the sense of simulator sickness occurred and usability ratings were high. No increases in heart rate were observed following the VR conditions. Presence ratings were higher for the HMD condition compared with the monitor condition for both user groups. Most of the healthy study participants (89%) and patients (71%) preferred the HMD-based training among the three conditions and most patients could imagine using it more frequently. Conclusions For the first time, the present study evaluated the usability of an immersive VR system for gait rehabilitation in a direct comparison with a semi-immersive system and a conventional training without VR with healthy participants and patients. The study demonstrated the feasibility of combining a treadmill training with immersive VR. Due to its high usability and low side effects, it might be particularly suited for patients to improve training motivation and training outcome e. g. the walking speed compared with treadmill training using no or only semi-immersive VR. Immersive VR systems still require specific technical setup procedures. This should be taken into account for specific clinical use-cases during a cost-benefit assessment. KW - rehabilitation KW - gait disorder KW - virtual reality KW - multiple sclerosis KW - stroke KW - head-mounted display KW - motivation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258698 SN - 1743-0003 VL - 18 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wienrich, Carolin A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich T1 - eXtended Artificial Intelligence: New Prospects of Human-AI Interaction Research JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality N2 - Artificial Intelligence (AI) covers a broad spectrum of computational problems and use cases. Many of those implicate profound and sometimes intricate questions of how humans interact or should interact with AIs. Moreover, many users or future users do have abstract ideas of what AI is, significantly depending on the specific embodiment of AI applications. Human-centered-design approaches would suggest evaluating the impact of different embodiments on human perception of and interaction with AI. An approach that is difficult to realize due to the sheer complexity of application fields and embodiments in reality. However, here XR opens new possibilities to research human-AI interactions. The article’s contribution is twofold: First, it provides a theoretical treatment and model of human-AI interaction based on an XR-AI continuum as a framework for and a perspective of different approaches of XR-AI combinations. It motivates XR-AI combinations as a method to learn about the effects of prospective human-AI interfaces and shows why the combination of XR and AI fruitfully contributes to a valid and systematic investigation of human-AI interactions and interfaces. Second, the article provides two exemplary experiments investigating the aforementioned approach for two distinct AI-systems. The first experiment reveals an interesting gender effect in human-robot interaction, while the second experiment reveals an Eliza effect of a recommender system. Here the article introduces two paradigmatic implementations of the proposed XR testbed for human-AI interactions and interfaces and shows how a valid and systematic investigation can be conducted. In sum, the article opens new perspectives on how XR benefits human-centered AI design and development. KW - human-artificial intelligence interface KW - human-artificial intelligence interaction KW - XR-artificial intelligence continuum KW - XR-artificial intelligence combination KW - research methods KW - human-centered, human-robot KW - recommender system Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260296 VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Oberdörfer, Sebastian A1 - Heidrich, David A1 - Birnstiel, Sandra A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich T1 - Enchanted by Your Surrounding? Measuring the Effects of Immersion and Design of Virtual Environments on Decision-Making JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality N2 - Impaired decision-making leads to the inability to distinguish between advantageous and disadvantageous choices. The impairment of a person’s decision-making is a common goal of gambling games. Given the recent trend of gambling using immersive Virtual Reality it is crucial to investigate the effects of both immersion and the virtual environment (VE) on decision-making. In a novel user study, we measured decision-making using three virtual versions of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The versions differed with regard to the degree of immersion and design of the virtual environment. While emotions affect decision-making, we further measured the positive and negative affect of participants. A higher visual angle on a stimulus leads to an increased emotional response. Thus, we kept the visual angle on the Iowa Gambling Task the same between our conditions. Our results revealed no significant impact of immersion or the VE on the IGT. We further found no significant difference between the conditions with regard to positive and negative affect. This suggests that neither the medium used nor the design of the VE causes an impairment of decision-making. However, in combination with a recent study, we provide first evidence that a higher visual angle on the IGT leads to an effect of impairment. KW - virtual reality KW - virtual environments KW - immersion KW - decision-making KW - iowa gambling task Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260101 VL - 2 ER -