The Virtual Reality Laboratory
The Virtual Reality Laboratory was established in 1999 by Professor Nigel Foreman to investigate applications of virtual environments (VEs) in several domains: environmental familiarity and spatial training and assessment in young people older people and in people with disabilities, training familiarity with school and college environments, public buildings such as shopping malls and office blocks, and in road safety training. Staff include Professor Nigel Foreman (spatial cognition), Dr Mark Coulson (3-D figural movement and emotional expression), and PhD students Jane Barnett (VE use in anger management) and Liliya Korallo (Virtual History).
Technical support is provided by Mr David Newson. Virtual environments have been used in the assessment of spatial function in dyslexia by colleagues Drs Neil Martin and Nicky Brunswick. The work has variously been funded in the past by Action Research, BT and Scope; the British Council and DAAD (Germany) for work with Kiel, Germany; also a European Union (INTAS) award for work with Moscow, St Petersburg (Russia), Juvaskula and Helsinki (Finland). The work featured in the BBC programme Memories are Made of This in 2002.
In addition, a research group involving collaboration between the Lansdown Centre for Digital Arts (Cat Hill campus- please note this campus has now closed; Drs Stephen Boyd-Davis and Magnus Moar) and Psychology has for three years been investigating the uses of VEs in the teaching of historical chronology, using fly-throughs of historical sequences of events to establish the concept of time passing (aka a time machine). This work has recently attracted a grant from the Leverhulme Trust (£70K). Work has also been carried out to investigate drawbacks of using VEs, such as distance underestimation effects and activity-passivity.
The laboratory is equipped with a variety of input devices that enable participants to interface with VE software, including stepping devices and tracked headgear. The laboratory is equipped with a wide-screen overhead projection system, and a wide angle (36 x 28 inch) floor-standing monitor screen, NVISnVisor 1280 X 1024 head mounted display, Ascension Flock of Birds standard range transmitter, Dual channel SX Video control unit, Virtools Development, Virtools VRPack and Superscape software on HP workstation 4000 and Dell XPS with widescreen monitor and OS windows7.
Dr George Sandamas has completed a study of activity and passivity in the exploration of virtual environments by school children and undergraduates, finding that interface familiarity is an important factor in determining the amount of spatial information that an individual acquires from virtual exploration. Training with an input device was found to improve spatial performance, perhaps because a familiar input device occupies less visual-spatial working memory capacity.
Topics recently investigated within the virtual reality laboratory include:
- Passive and active control of movement and effects on spatial information acquisition
- Children’s use of VEs in acquiring environmental familiarity
- Older adults learning of the spatial layout of a shopping mall and transfer of learning to the real mall
- Distance underestimation effects in virtual environments
- Method of loci for the retention of information, within real and virtual environments
- Spatial training and assessment in dyslexic participants
- VE use in anger management
- Spatial impairment in children with disabilities: assessment and remediation
- Use of virtual fly-throughs to train historical chronology
- Children’s reconstruction skills after active and passive virtual training
- Working memory implications of using an unfamiliar input device
- Potential for VEs as a road safety training medium
- Use of VEs in the spatial assessment of clinical patients
- Use of the Kiel locomotor maze: transfer between virtual and real versions
Selected illustrative output:
Wilson, P., Foreman, N., & Stanton, D; 1999; Improving spatial awareness in physically disabled children using virtual environments. Engineering Science and Education Journal, 8, 196-200.
Foreman, N., Stirk, J., Pohl, J., Mandelkow, L., Lehnung, M., Herzog, A., & Leplow, B; 2000; Spatial information transfer from virtual to real versions of the Kiel locomotor maze. Behavioural Brain Research, 112, 53-61.
Foreman, N; 2000; Finding a place for virtual reality in special needs education: A review. Themes in Education, 1, 391-408.
Stanton, D., Wilson, P., & Foreman, N; 2002; Effects of early mobility on shortcut performance in a simulated maze. Behavioural Brain Research, 136, 61-66.
Foreman, N., Stanton, D., Wilson, P., & Duffy, H; 2003; Spatial knowledge of a real school environment acquired from virtual or physical models by able-bodied children and children with disabilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9, 67-74.
Stanton, D. E. B., Wilson, P. N., & Foreman, N; 2003; Human shortcut performance in a computer-simulated maze: A comparative study. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 3, 315-329.
Wilson, P., Foreman, N., Stanton, D. & Duffy, H; 2004; Memory for targets in a multi-level simulated-environment: Evidence for asymmetry in spatial memory. Memory and Cognition, 32, 283-297.
Akhutina, T., Foreman, N., Krichevets, A., Matikka, L., Narhi, V., Pylaeva, N., & Vahakuopus, J; 2003; Improving spatial functioning in children with cerebral palsy using computerised and traditional game tasks. Disability and Rehabilitation, 25, 1361-1371.
Foreman, N., Stanton, D. E., Wilson, P. N. & Duffy, H. E; 2003; Spatial knowledge of a real school environment acquired from virtual or physical models by able-bodied children and children with physical disabilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9, 67-74.
Foreman, N., Sandamas, G. & Newson, D. 2004; Distance underestimation in virtual space is sensitive to gender but not activity-passivity or mode of interaction. CyberPsychology and Behavior; 7, 457-462.
Stanton, E. B., Wilson, P., & Foreman, N; 2003; Human shortcut performance in a computer-simulated maze: A comparative study. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 3 (4), 315-329.
Sandamas, G., &Foreman, N. 2003; Active and passive spatial learning from a desk-top virtual environment in male and female participants: A comparison with guessing controls. Journal of Health, Social and Environmental Issues, 4(2), 15-21.
Wilson, P. N., Foreman, N., Stanton, D., & Duffy, H. 2004; Memory for targets in a multi-level simulated-environment: A comparison between able-bodied and physically disabled children. British Journal of Psychology, 95, 325-338.
Foreman, N., Stanton, D., Wilson, P., Duffy, H. & Parnell, R; 2005; Transfer of spatial knowledge to a 2-level shopping mall in older people, following virtual exploration. Environment and Behavior, 37, 275-292.
Foreman, N; Stirk, J; 2005; Peer commentary on review by Brooks et al. Invited contribution to Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 8, (3), 263-271.
Stirk, J., & Foreman, N. 2005; Assessment of visual-spatial deficits in patients with early Parkinsons disease and closed head injuries using virtual environments. Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 8, 431-440.
Foreman, N. Spatial cognition and its facilitation in special populations. 2006; In: G. Allen (Ed), Applied Spatial Cognition: From Research to Cognitive Technology. New York: Laurence Erlbaum.
Sandamas, G., &Foreman, N. 2007; Spatial reconstruction following virtual exploration in children aged 5-9 years: Effecst of age, gender and activity-passivity. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27, 126-134.
Sandamas, G., & Foreman, N. 2007; Drawing maps and remembering landmarks after driving in a small town environment. Journal of Maps, 5, 35-45.
Foreman, N., Korallo, L., Newson, D. & Sarantos, M. (in press) The incorporation of challenge enhances the learning of chronology from a virtual display. Journal of Virtual Reality.
Foreman, N., Boyd-Davis, S., Moar, M., Korallo, L. and Chappell, E. (in press). Can Virtual Environments be used to enhance the learning of historical chronology? Instructional Science
Sandamas, G., Foreman, N. & Coulson, M.: (submitted). Input device training reinstates active benefit in children when exploring virtual environments.
Barnett, J., Coulson, M. & Foreman, N. 2005; Grumpy old men or calm old gents. Poster presented at the British Psychological Society Quinquennial Conference. UK: Manchester.
