The Heat is On

Abstract

Understanding validity of user behaviour in Virtual Environments (VEs) is critical as they are increasingly being used for serious Health and Safety applications such as predicting human behaviour and training in hazardous situations. This paper presents a comparative study exploring user behaviour in VE-based fire evacuation and investigates whether this is affected by the addition of thermal and olfactory simulation. Participants (N=43) were exposed to a virtual fire in an office building. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of participant attitudes and behaviours found deviations from those we would expect in real life (e.g. pre-evacuation actions), but also valid behaviours like fire avoidance. Potentially important differences were found between multisensory and audiovisual-only conditions (e.g. perceived urgency). We conclude VEs have significant potential in safety-related applications, and that multimodality may afford additional uses in this context, but the identified limitations of behavioural validity must be carefully considered to avoid misapplication of the technology.

CoVR: A Large-Scale Force-Feedback Robotic Interface for Non-Deterministic Scenarios in VR

“…Haptic stimuli can be expanded to vibrations, sliding, textures, temperatures, or to shape changing illusions. For instance, heat-lamps or wind-blowers could also be integrated [54].…”

A SWOT Analysis of the Field of Virtual Reality for Firefighter Training

“…The effects of heat radiation in training scenarios has been looked at in the context of VR training for fire emergency scenarios. The participants in Shaw et al (2019) reported to be feeling more like actually being in a fire in the multi-sensory condition, which led to more natural actions during the experiment.…”

The Evaluation of Virtual Reality Fire Extinguisher Training

“…Haptic has been more challenging to synthesize but it was attempted using either gloves or mechanical limbs (Blascovich et al, 2002). The haptic and olfactory simulation of heat and smell of smoke is less explored in the literature (Shaw et al, 2019). Nevertheless, past research has shown that the addition of thermal haptic feedback was not found to influence performance significantly, but it did improve the sense of presence and satisfaction in the trainees such that they experience lower simulation sickness, higher realism and engagement (Barbosa et al, 2017).…”

“…Nevertheless, thermal haptic feedback must be further improved, and heating must be better synchronized in order to enhance realism and presence (Garcia-Valle et al, 2017). Addition of sense of smell to satisfy olfactory simulation was also suggested for increased realism (Shaw et al, 2019).…”

“…More progress is still needed to provide a well synchronized and overall body experience when it comes to haptic-thermal feedback, if we aim for an optimum user experience and sense of realism (Shaw et al, 2019). According to Chalmers et al (2009) in order to achieve multisensory realism, it is not necessary to have high fidelity multisensory feedback and interaction for all the human senses because humans are not attending to all senses equally at every moment.…”