laude) in psychology and the M.Sc. degree in cognitive neuroscience from Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, and the Ph.D. degree (cum laude) in social and affective neuroscience from Tilburg University,

Purpose Investigating demands within an occupational context has always been an essential endeavor to guarantee worker well-being and performance efficiency. In blue-collar occupations, the physical demands of manual labor have always been the major focus, but recent technological changes may come with higher demands on the intellectual capacities of workers. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to assess physical and cognitive demands that construction workers face. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a quantitative study using standardized research instruments. Construction workers of three German construction companies were asked to volunteer to participate in interviews (n=35) and a survey (n=30) that assessed the extent of physical demands and a variety of cognitive demands experienced by construction workers. Findings The results suggest that construction work is demanding in physical terms as well as in perceptual, psychomotor, social and cognitive terms. Using and updating specialized knowledge, giving advice and providing consultation, friendliness, assertiveness and reliability are important demands among construction workers. Research limitations/implications Construction workers face an undervalued level of demands in their everyday work environment. As high demands can affect well-being and mental health, construction companies would greatly benefit from investing efforts into evaluating the multi-component demands profile of their workers and the impact on their health, in particular through the strongly increasing cognitive demands due to the ongoing digitization of the sector. Originality/value The study identified essential demands in construction work that are relevant for the workers’ productivity and well-being.

Given recent technological developments in robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, it is perhaps unsurprising that the arrival of emotionally expressive and reactive artificial agents is imminent. However, if such agents are to become integrated into our social milieu, it is imperative to establish an understanding of whether and how humans perceive emotion in artificial agents. In this review, we incorporate recent findings from social robotics, virtual reality, psychology, and neuroscience to examine how people recognize and respond to emotions displayed by artificial agents. First, we review how people perceive emotions expressed by an artificial agent, such as facial and bodily expressions and vocal tone. Second, we evaluate the similarities and differences in the consequences of perceived emotions in artificial compared to human agents. Besides accurately recognizing the emotional state of an artificial agent, it is critical to understand how humans respond to those emotions. Does interacting with an angry robot induce the same responses in people as interacting with an angry person? Similarly, does watching a robot rejoice when it wins a game elicit similar feelings of elation in the human observer? Here we provide an overview of the current state of emotion expression and perception in social robotics, as well as a clear articulation of the challenges and guiding principles to be addressed as we move ever closer to truly emotional artificial agents.

This study utilises a novel approach to investigate the effectiveness of different learning modalities by combining video‐based learning with eye‐tracking. An excerpt taken from a vocational education instruction for car mechanics was videotaped using two different cameras: a standard 2D video camera and a professional 360° camera. The video recorded with the 2D camera was presented on a tablet, with a fixed angle, whereas the video recorded with the 360° camera was presented as non‐interactive 3DoF virtual reality (nVR) environment using a head‐mounted display. In both conditions, participants’ fixation patterns were recorded and analysed in conjunction with a set of standardised questionnaires. Participants (N = 48) were randomly assigned to either the 2D‐video group or the nVR group, with 23 participants in the 2D‐video and 25 participants in the nVR group. The task of the participants in both groups was to watch the educational video while wearing an eye‐tracker and then complete a standardised test on the presented content. The eye‐tracking data indicated that participants in the nVR group showed longer total fixation durations on the instructor, but not other areas of interest, compared to the 2D video group. The standardised test indicated no differences in learning outcome between the groups. Implications from the current study as well as limitations and a outlook for further research will be discussed. What is already known about this topic Virtual reality (VR) technology is getting more commonplace in educational settings. It is unclear whether VR‐based learning holds clear benefits over more traditional approaches such as hands‐on‐training or video‐based learning. What this paper adds This paper adds a comparison of two common video‐based teaching techniques and compares them in respect to learning outcome and learner's attention. The novelty of the current paper is the addition of eye‐tracking in both tablet‐based and HMD‐based learning scenarios to investigate learners' visual attention. Describes potential attention benefits of 360° videos compared to 2D videos despite no differences in learning outcome directly. Implications for practice and/or policy Results highlight the potential of placing more focus on social factors in 360° video material. Future 360° videos and VR environments can add additional focus on instructors or other socially relevant aspects to foster student learning and engagement.

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Although the focus of Virtual Reality (VR) lies predominantly on the visual world, acoustic components enhance the functionality of a 3D environment. To study the interaction between visual and auditory modalities in a 3D environment, we investigated the effect of auditory cues on visual searches in 3D virtual environments with both visual and auditory noise. In an experiment, we asked participants to detect visual targets in a 360° video in conditions with and without environmental noise. Auditory cues indicating the target location were either absent or one of simple stereo or binaural audio, both of which assisted sound localization. To investigate the efficacy of these cues in distracting environments, we measured participant performance using a VR headset with an eye tracker. We found that the binaural cue outperformed both stereo and no auditory cues in terms of target detection irrespective of the environmental noise. We used two eye movement measures and two physiological measures to evaluate task dynamics and mental effort. We found that the absence of a cue increased target search duration and target search path, measured as time to fixation and gaze trajectory lengths, respectively. Our physiological measures of blink rate and pupil size showed no difference between the different stadium and cue conditions. Overall, our study provides evidence for the utility of binaural audio in a realistic, noisy and virtual environment for performing a target detection task, which is a crucial part of everyday behaviour—finding someone in a crowd.