Immersive media experience: a survey of existing methods and tools for human influential factors assessment

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) applications, especially those where the user is untethered to a computer, are becoming more prevalent as new hardware is developed, computational power and artificial intelligence algorithms are available, and wireless communication networks are becoming more reliable, fast, and providing higher reliability. In fact, recent projections show that by 2022 the number of VR users will double, suggesting the sector was not negatively affected by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The success of any immersive communication system is heavily dependent on the user experience it delivers, thus now more than ever has it become crucial to develop reliable models of immersive media experience (IMEx). In this paper, we survey the literature for existing methods and tools to assess human influential factors (HIFs) related to IMEx. In particular, subjective, behavioural, and psycho-physiological methods are covered. We describe tools available to monitor these HIFs, including the user's sense of presence and immersion, cybersickness, and mental/affective states, as well as their role in overall experience. Special focus is placed on psycho-physiological methods, as it was found that such in-depth evaluation was lacking from the existing literature. We conclude by touching on emerging applications involving multiple-sensorial immersive media and provide suggestions for future research directions to fill existing gaps. It is hoped that this survey will be useful for researchers interested in building new immersive (adaptive) applications that maximize user experience.

The realm of metaverse: A survey

“…[26][27][28] The metaverse will prioritize the user experience by incorporating Quality of Experience (QoE) measures into network performance studies, and by managing network traffic from beginning to end on the client side. 29 The server may also adjust network broadcasting based on QoE measurements sent by the client. Traffic control in core networks can be handled using QoE metrics through queuing policies, software-defined networks, or network slicing.…”

“…5G currently struggles to meet the latency requirements for contemporary multimedia applications, and does not have the necessary frameworks for low latency from client to server 26–28 . The metaverse will prioritize the user experience by incorporating Quality of Experience (QoE) measures into network performance studies, and by managing network traffic from beginning to end on the client side 29 . The server may also adjust network broadcasting based on QoE measurements sent by the client.…”

Instrumenting a virtual reality headset for at-home gamer experience monitoring and behavioural assessment

“…Subjective tests, however, can be highly biased, lack temporal resolution, and are performed after the immersive application is finished, thus rely on gamer memory to recall events. Monitoring HIFs in real-time, in turn, requires objective methods and physiological signals have proven to be particularly effective (Moinnereau et al, 2022a). For instance, stress and engagement levels, emotions, sense of presence and immersion, and overall experience have been monitored from electroencephalograms (EEG), electrocardiograms (ECG), and electrooculograms (EOG) (Dehais et al, 2018).…”

“…Therefore, it has become crucial to develop reliable models of immersive media QoE. While technological and contextual factors have been explored in the past (Wang et al, 2017;Metzger et al, 2018;Sousa et al, 2020;Kougioumtzidis et al, 2022), HIFs have been less explored, as highlighted by Moinnereau et al (2022a).…”

Metaverse-based virtual reality experience and endurance performance in sports economy: Mediating role of mental health and performance anxiety

“…For the VR environment to induce a profoundly positive transfer, it must combine functional movement fidelity with meaningful action options and the proper sensory information ( 10 ). In a variety of sports, such as basketball free-throw shooting, rugby side-stepping ( 11 ), and fly ball catching, the use of virtual reality as a training simulator has shown varying degrees of effectiveness. The task used by Bieńkiewicz et al ( 12 ) was free throw shooting in basketball.…”