Effect of levels of immersion on performance and presence in virtual occupational tasks. (September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rose, Tyler; Chen*, Karen B.
• Is Part Of: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society ... Annual Meeting. Volume 62:Part 1(2018)
• Page Start: 2079
• Page End: 2083
• Publication Date: 2018-09
• Subjects: Human engineering -- Congresses; 620.8205
• DOI: 10.1177/1541931218621469
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1541-9312

Abstract

Occupational training has seen a shift towards newer, more immersive and interactive instruction delivery methods, including virtual reality. Much of this research, however, has not fully examined immersion and presence as primary characteristic that could influence training outcomes. Additionally, a variety of objective measures as indicators of presence virtual environments have received recent, yet limited research attention. This pilot study examined human performance and presence in virtual reality by monitoring cardiac activity during a simple occupational training task at varying levels of immersion. Physiologic response, via heart rate, and task performance did not see a statistically significant response to immersion in a simple occupational assembly task. Findings suggested that the level of immersion did not affect task performance in terms of accuracy. It is possible that simulations of simple occupational tasks for training task accuracy do not require high levels of immersion. Subjective presence response was marginally affected by immersion, and it exhibited a statistically significant correlation to heart rate. It is possible that certain types of physiological measures are more appropriate objective indicators of presence in different simulation contexts.