Transfer of training—Virtual reality training with augmented multisensory cues improves user experience during training and task performance in the real world

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) can create safe, cost-effective, and engaging learning environments. It is commonly assumed that improvements in simulation fidelity lead to better learning outcomes. Some aspects of real environments, for example vestibular or haptic cues, are difficult to recreate in VR, but VR offers a wealth of opportunities to provide additional sensory cues in arbitrary modalities that provide task relevant information. The aim of this study was to investigate whether these cues improve user experience and learning outcomes, and, specifically, whether learning using augmented sensory cues translates into performance improvements in real environments. Participants were randomly allocated into three matched groups: Group 1 (control) was asked to perform a real tyre change only. The remaining two groups were trained in VR before performance was evaluated on the same, real tyre change task. Group 2 was trained using a conventional VR system, while Group 3 was trained in VR with augmented, task relevant, multisensory cues. Objective performance, time to completion and error number, subjective ratings of presence, perceived workload, and discomfort were recorded. The results show that both VR training paradigms improved performance for the real task. Providing additional, task-relevant cues during VR training resulted in higher objective performance during the real task. We propose a novel method to quantify the relative performance gains between training paradigms that estimates the relative gain in terms of training time. Systematic differences in subjective ratings that show comparable workload ratings, higher presence ratings and lower discomfort ratings, mirroring objective performance measures, were also observed. These findings further support the use of augmented multisensory cues in VR environments as an efficient method to enhance performance, user experience and, critically, the transfer of training from virtual to real environment scenarios.

Why just experience the future when you can change it: Virtual reality can increase pro-environmental food choices through self-efficacy.

“…IVR has been argued to be a suitable tool for promoting learning transfer (Cooper et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2017;Narciso et al, 2019), as it offers the possibility for the endless practice of desired skills that can be expensive, dangerous, or even impossible in the realworld setting (Bailenson, 2018). Moreover, VR enables training and learning in different contextual situations with a high level of presence and agency (Makransky & Petersen, 2021).…”

From Digital Media to Empathic Reality: A Systematic Review of Empathy Research in Extended Reality Environments

“…Nevertheless, prior works reveal that the skills or knowledge acquired in virtual environments can be disconnected from the scenarios in physical world. Therefore, augmented reality can play an auxiliary role in visual cues to remind the acquired skills and knowledge during applicable contexts [24]. Similarly, AR can potentially complement VR to extend the entire cycle of empathic journey -VR aims to elicit users' empathy, while AR reminds users of the experienced empathic scenes in matched contexts, achieving transfers of "empathic learning".…”

“…To this end, it is necessary to link the sole virtual environments with virtual-physical (blended) environments [72,73]. As a prior study revealed that the combination of AR and VR can further engage the users [24], more investigation should be done to achieve the potential of the empathic metaverse.…”

Development of Low-Fidelity Virtual Replicas of Products for Usability Testing

“…This could help prime expectations and help subjects keep track of appropriate object interactions. Studies have found that virtual environment performance can impact real world performance [119][120][121][122]. The habits that subjects are forming when interacting with virtual replicas must translate into good practices when using the real-world version of the product.…”