CHS: Small: Enabling Accessibility of Virtual Reality for Persons with Balance Impairments

CHS：小型：为平衡障碍人士提供虚拟现实体验

• 批准号: 2007041
• 负责人: John Quarles
• 金额: $ 49.71万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at San Antonio
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-01 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2007041&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CHS; Small; Enabling; Accessibility; Virtual

Virtual Reality (VR) renders 3D computer graphics and sound in head mounted displays (HMDs) to make users feel as though they are in another place. Although consumer level HMDs are affordable enough to benefit a large user base, these devices are not accessible for many persons with balance impairments, such as elderly persons, persons with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, or stroke. Currently, immersive VR applications, such as education, physical fitness, rehabilitation, and entertainment, are not accessible to users with balance impairments. To address this need, the team of researchers will use a combination of visual, audio, and touch feedback to improve balance in VR. Although these methods have been effectively used in reality, they have minimally been tested in VR and it is unknown what the most effective combination of feedbacks are. If VR imbalance issues can be mitigated, persons with balance impairments may be able to more readily benefit from consumer VR. The project will also impact community outreach for persons with disabilities in that the investigators plan to give lectures at support groups and symposia on disabilities that will further educate persons with disabilities about VR. The project will also increase involvement of underrepresented minority students in research, because more than 59% of The University of Texas at San Antonio's students come from groups underrepresented in higher education. The overall objective of this project is to investigate multimodal techniques to improve balance in VR for persons with balance impairments, such as elderly persons and persons with neurological disorders. Based on the research team's preliminary studies, the central hypothesis is: sensory cues from a combination of multimodal feedback techniques, such as a visual static rest frame, auditory feedback on posture, and tactile feedback on posture from a vibro-tactile belt, will help to mitigate the imbalance effects, depending upon the cause of the imbalance. The idea will be to separately group the target populations due to several factors (e.g., clinical condition, age) and interpret the balance impaired human participants' experiences in VR based on that grouping. Ultimately, this research will result in a set of validated, gait-in-VR data and open-source tools that will make VR more accessible for persons with balance impairments, improving their quality of life. The project is creative and original because there has been minimal previous research into why VR causes imbalance and how it affects persons with balance impairments and hence, few works have explored solutions to this problem. The project is potentially transformative because it may disrupt accepted theories and perspectives of user interaction in VR, especially for persons with balance impairments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

虚拟现实(VR)在头盔显示器(HMD)上渲染3D计算机图形和声音，让用户感觉就像在另一个地方。尽管消费级HMD的价格足够实惠，足以让大量用户受益，但许多平衡障碍者，如老年人、多发性硬化症患者、帕金森氏症患者或中风患者，无法获得这些设备。目前，有平衡障碍的用户无法访问沉浸式VR应用，如教育、健身、康复和娱乐。为了满足这一需求，研究团队将使用视觉、音频和触摸反馈的组合来改善VR中的平衡。虽然这些方法在现实中得到了有效的应用，但它们在VR中进行了最小限度的测试，目前尚不清楚最有效的反馈组合是什么。如果虚拟现实失衡的问题能够得到缓解，平衡障碍的人可能会更容易从消费虚拟现实中受益。该项目还将影响社区对残疾人的宣传，因为调查人员计划在关于残疾人的支助小组和研讨会上讲课，以进一步教育残疾人关于虚拟现实的知识。该项目还将增加未被充分代表的少数族裔学生参与研究，因为德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校59%以上的学生来自高等教育中未被充分代表的群体。这个项目的总体目标是研究多模式技术，以改善有平衡障碍的人在VR中的平衡，如老年人和神经疾病患者。基于研究小组的初步研究，中心假设是：来自多模式反馈技术组合的感觉提示，如视觉静态休息框架、对姿势的听觉反馈，以及来自振动-触觉腰带的对姿势的触觉反馈，将有助于缓解失衡影响，具体取决于失衡的原因。这个想法将是由于几个因素(例如，临床条件、年龄)而对目标人群进行单独分组，并基于该分组来解释平衡受损的人类参与者在VR中的体验。最终，这项研究将产生一套经过验证的VR步态数据和开源工具，使平衡障碍者更容易使用VR，提高他们的生活质量。这个项目是有创意和原创性的，因为之前很少有人研究VR为什么会导致失衡，以及它如何影响平衡障碍的人，因此，很少有作品探索这个问题的解决方案。该项目具有潜在的变革性，因为它可能会扰乱虚拟现实中公认的用户交互理论和观点，特别是对于有平衡障碍的人。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

LiteVR: Interpretable and Lightweight Cybersickness Detection using Explainable AI

LiteVR：使用可解释的人工智能进行可解释的轻量级晕眩检测

• DOI: 10.1109/vr55154.2023.00076
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: 2023 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR
• 作者: Kundu, Ripan Kumar;Islam, Rifatul;Quarles, John;Hoque, Khaza Anuarul
• 通讯作者: Hoque, Khaza Anuarul

Standing Balance Improvement Using Vibrotactile Feedback in Virtual Reality

在虚拟现实中使用振动触觉反馈改善站立平衡

• DOI: 10.1145/3562939.3565638
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: ACM VRST 2022
• 作者: Mahmud, M. Rasel;Stewart, Michael;Cordova, Alberto;Quarles, John
• 通讯作者: Quarles, John

You Make Me Sick! The Effect of Stairs on Presence, Cybersickness, and Perception of Embodied Conversational Agents

• DOI: 10.1109/vr55154.2023.00071
• 发表时间: 2023-03
• 期刊: 2023 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)
• 作者: Samuel Ang;Amanda Fernandez;Michael Rushforth;J. Quarles

Auditory Feedback to Make Walking in Virtual Reality More Accessible

听觉反馈让虚拟现实中的行走变得更容易

• DOI: 10.1109/ismar55827.2022.00103
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: IEEE ISMAR 2022
• 作者: Mahmud, M. Rasel;Stewart, Michael;Cordova, Alberto;Quarles, John
• 通讯作者: Quarles, John

Auditory Feedback for Standing Balance Improvement in Virtual Reality

虚拟现实中改善站立平衡的听觉反馈

• DOI: 10.1109/vr51125.2022.00100
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: 2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR
• 作者: Mahmud, M. Rasel;Stewart, Michael;Cordova, Alberto;Quarles, John
• 通讯作者: Quarles, John