Effective communication is essential for students in construction management and relevant fields. Nevertheless, very little emphasis on communication practices has been placed in the construction management curriculum, and limited communication skills are still widely found among students. Ideal construction site visits not only supplement traditional learning in the classrooms but also provide opportunities to communicate with professionals onsite. However, challenges exist that limit the application of site visits and ultimately reduce such opportunities to practice communication skills with experts on the jobsites. This research aims to help overcome the barriers by proposing a novel approach that leverages 360-degree digital sites with virtual human as conversational partners on site (iVisit-Communicate). In this paper, the design and development processes of iVisit-Communicate were described in detail, followed by a case study of its implementation on a digital site visit to a mechanical room. It was found that most students agreed that iVisit-Communicate provided them an opportunity to practice communication skills.
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The advantages of virtual dogs over virtual people: Using augmented reality to provide social support in stressful situations
- Award ID(s):
- 1800961
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10343484
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
- Volume:
- 165
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 1071-5819
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 102838
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The auspicious future of VR could be thwarted by cybersickness. A factor known to influence susceptibility is sex, with females often experiencing higher incidences. A mitigation strategy is to identify individuals who are more sensitive to cybersickness, such that interventions can be implemented before the onset of subjective symptoms. Such an approach could use predictive models that compare a user’s online kinematic body sway and physiological characteristics to data from individuals that reported cybersickness. If such predictive models can be developed, then one approach is altering the virtual environment (VE) based on this real-time data. The benefit of adjusting the VE is that it permits a susceptible individual to use the VR device with a reduction in adverse symptoms. One way to alter the VE is by manipulating optic flow, which can be described as the perceived visual motion of objects that are generated through an observer’s movements. Optic flow can be increased by increasing the level of details in the VE. That is to say, visual displays that contain a lot of details often give rise to stronger subjective sensations of movement. Thus, if the level of details in the VE is reduced, then this may reduce cybersickness reports.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102838
