The Reality of Virtual Reality: A Comparison of Pedestrian Behavior in Real and Virtual Environments

Bhagavathula, Rajaram; Williams, Brian; Owens, Justin M.; Gibbons, Ronald B.

doi:10.1177/1541931218621464

Cited by 65 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…This could have made it possible for the participants to make unsafe decisions which would not be found in real life crossing situations. However, Bhagavathula, Williams, Owens, and Gibbons (2018) revealed in a similar study where pedestrians' crossing behavior in virtual environments was compared with their behavior in a real life experiment that the decisions made in real life and in virtual reality are similar. This is an indication of the validity of this method but future research comparing this smartphone and 360 degrees videos-based VR method with other kinds of VR methods and field studies could assess its performance more clearly.…”

Section: Involvementmentioning

confidence: 93%

Studying pedestrians’ crossing behavior when interacting with automated vehicles using virtual reality

Velasco

Farah

Arem

et al. 2019

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviou

105

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Partially and fully automated vehicles (AVs) are being developed and tested in different countries. These vehicles are being designed to reduce and ultimately eliminate the role of human drivers in the future. However, other road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists will still be present and would need to interact with these automated vehicles. Therefore, external communication interfaces could be added to the vehicle to communicate with pedestrians and other non-automated road users. The first aim of this study is to investigate how the physical appearance of the AV and a mounted external human-machine interface (eHMI) affect pedestrians' crossing intention. The second aim is to assess the perceived realism of Virtual reality based on 360°videos for pedestrian crossing behavior for research purposes. The speed, time gap, and an eHMIs were included in the study as independent factors. Fifty-five individuals participated in our experiment. Their crossing intentions were recorded, as well as their trust in automation and perceived behavioral control. A mixed binomial logistic regression model was applied on the data for analysis. The results show that the presence of a zebra crossing and larger gap size between the pedestrian and the vehicle increase the pedestrian's intention to cross. In contrast to our expectations, participants intended to cross less often when the speed of the vehicle was lower. Despite that the vehicle type affected the perceived risk of the participants, no significant difference was found in crossing intention. Participants who recognized the vehicle as an AV had, overall, lower intentions to cross. A strong positive relationship was found between crossing intentions and perceived behavioral control. A difference in trust was found between participants who recognized the vehicle as automated, but this did not lead to a difference in crossing intentions. We assessed the research methodology using the presence questionnaire, the simulation sickness survey, and by comparing the results with previous literature. The method scored highly on the presence questionnaire and only 2 out of 55 participants stopped prematurely. Thus, the research methodology is useful for crossing behavior experiments.

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Section: Involvementmentioning

confidence: 93%

Studying pedestrians’ crossing behavior when interacting with automated vehicles using virtual reality

Velasco

Farah

Arem

et al. 2019

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviou

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, it usually requires the least immersive environment such as wall-based or monitor-based projection with special goggles or HMD with a simple input devices like keyboard, mouse, touchscreen or controller. Generally such scenarios consist of 3D visualisation [39,42], training in hazardous situation [43][44][45] as well as travel and space trips [46,47]. Very good examples are presented in [47], where the author summarises the impact of VR on history education.…”

Section: Types Of Virtual Educational Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Reality and Its Applications in Education: Survey

et al. 2019

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In the education process, students face problems with understanding due to the complexity, necessity of abstract thinking and concepts. More and more educational centres around the world have started to introduce powerful new technology-based tools that help meet the needs of the diverse student population. Over the last several years, virtual reality (VR) has moved from being the purview of gaming to professional development. It plays an important role in teaching process, providing an interesting and engaging way of acquiring information. What follows is an overview of the big trend, opportunities and concerns associated with VR in education. We present new opportunities in VR and put together the most interesting, recent virtual reality applications used in education in relation to several education areas such as general, engineering and health-related education. Additionally, this survey contributes by presenting methods for creating scenarios and different approaches for testing and validation. Lastly, we conclude and discuss future directions of VR and its potential to improve the learning experience.Information 2019, 10, 318 2 of 20 must be carried out under supervision; therefore, students cannot self-configure lab equipment, experience states of emergency or effects of misconfiguration which may lead to equipment damage. Moreover, there is no possibility to practice and catch up outside the laboratory schedule. Currently, the solutions are modern technologies such as online courses [8,9], blended learning [10-13], different computer-based platforms [14-18] and many others, which allow the students to repeat several times the same topic, make mistakes and learn from them. Numerous examples of hardware and software which have been successful in educational processes indicate that edtech industry can improve learning outcomes for the majority of students [19]. More and more educational centres around the world are starting to introduce powerful new technology tools that help them to meet the needs of diverse student populations. Traditional books are being replaced by digital instructional content (especially from open educational resources) [20]. Notebooks, tablets or cell phones with dedicated application have replaced classical copybooks [21]. Distance [22] and personalised learning [23] are used to tailor education to each student's academic strengths, weaknesses, preferences and goals.It is well known that the use of information and communication technologies have been found to improve student attitudes towards learning [24][25][26][27]. It is a rapidly growing field of research, continually developing and looking for new technological solutions. Over the last several years, Virtual Reality (VR), which provides an interactive computer-generated environment, has moved from being the purview of the gaming to the professional development such as military, psychology, medicine and teaching applications.In 1987, Jaron Lanier, together with Steve Bryson, formulated the first definition of VR, which they desc...

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“…Some studies have started to compare reallife pedestrian behavior to the behavior observed in virtual environments. For example, several studies investigate whether virtual experiments can be used to capture the roadcrossing behavior of pedestrians in the presence of vehicles and generally find a good match to real-life behavior (Bhagavathula et al, 2018;Deb et al, 2017;Schwebel et al, 2008). Other research confirms that simple avoidance maneuvers between pedestrians can also be faithfully captured in virtual experiments (Iryo-Asano et al, 2018;Moussaid et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing the route-choice behavior of pedestrians around obstacles in a virtual experiment and a field study

Zhang

Long

et al. 2019

Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies

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Highlights We analyze pedestrian route choice behavior around obstacles in a simple scenario  We compare a field study and a virtual experiment with identical setups  We find qualitatively similar results in both settings  This helps to validate virtual experiments as a useful methodology AbstractPedestrians often need to decide between different routes they can use to reach their intended destinations, both during emergencies and in their daily lives. This routechoice behavior is important in determining traffic management, evacuation efficiency and building design. Here, we use field observations and a virtual experiment to study the route choice behavior of pedestrians around obstacles delimiting exit routes and examine the influence of three factors, namely the local distance to route starting points  Corresponding author: Jun Zhang, Email: junz@ustc.edu.cn 2 and the pedestrian density and walking speeds along routes. Crucially, both field study and virtual experiment consider the same scenario which allows us to directly assess the validity of testing pedestrian behavior in virtual environments. We find that in both data sets the proportion of people who choose a closer exit route increases as the difference in distance between exit route starting points increases. Pedestrians' choices in our data also depend on pedestrian density along routes, with people preferring less used routes. Our results thus confirm previously established route choice mechanisms and we can predict over 74% of choices based on these factors. The qualitative agreement in results between the field study and the virtual experiment suggests that in simple route-choice scenarios, such as the one we investigate here, virtual experiments can be a valid experimental technique for studying pedestrian behavior. We therefore provide much-needed empirical support for the emerging paradigm of experiments in virtual environments.

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The Reality of Virtual Reality: A Comparison of Pedestrian Behavior in Real and Virtual Environments

Cited by 65 publications

References 11 publications

Studying pedestrians’ crossing behavior when interacting with automated vehicles using virtual reality

Studying pedestrians’ crossing behavior when interacting with automated vehicles using virtual reality

Virtual Reality and Its Applications in Education: Survey

Comparing the route-choice behavior of pedestrians around obstacles in a virtual experiment and a field study

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