CAVE2 comparison of 1st & 3rd user perspectives in virtual motor rehabilitation tasks

March 8th, 2017

Categories: Applications, Human Factors, MS / PhD Thesis, User Groups, VR

About

EVL MS candidate Juan Trelles Trabucco presents his masters thesis research “CAVE2 comparison of 1st & 3rd user perspectives in virtual motor rehabilitation tasks”:
UIC / EVL
842 W. Taylor Street, Room 2068 (EVL Cybercommons)
Chicago, IL 60607
312.996.3002

Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 3pm

Committee: Elisabeta Marai (advisor and chair), Jim Patton (Bioengineering), Robert V. Kenyon

Abstract:
Strokes are the leading cause of severe longstanding impairments in the US. In this context, virtual rehabilitation appears as an additional support to traditional treatments by taking advantage of virtual reality (VR). However, researchers do not agree on which aspects of VR are more relevant for specific therapies. One of these aspects is the user perspective. Rehabilitation applications mostly use first-person perspective or third-person perspective but do not compare the effect of both of them in a particular task.

We performed a user study (N=30) in the CAVE2 environment with the application RehabJim, a virtual rehabilitation game for upper limbs recovery. Our research compared the effect of the user perspective, exercise modes, and two target sizes on user performance, the degree of immersion and body movements. Results suggested an effect of the exercise mode, and a smaller effect of the user perspective on time required to finish a task, hand movements, and movement corrections. User perspective had the main effect on head movements. Finally, the subjects felt the same immersion level under both user perspectives.