Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence For Team Cognition In Human-Ai Teams, Beau Schelble

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Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have enabled AI to be applied across a wide variety of new fields like cryptography, art, and data analysis. Several of these fields are social in nature, including decision-making and teaming, which introduces a new set of challenges for AI research. While each of these fields has its unique challenges, the area of human-AI teaming is beset with many that center around the expectations and abilities of AI teammates. One such challenge is understanding team cognition in these human-AI teams and AI teammates' ability to contribute towards, support, and encourage it. Team cognition is …

All Hands On Deck: Choosing Virtual End Effector Representations To Improve Near Field Object Manipulation Interactions In Extended Reality, Roshan Venkatakrishnan

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Extended reality, or "XR", is the adopted umbrella term that is heavily gaining traction to collectively describe Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR), and Mixed reality (MR) technologies. Together, these technologies extend the reality that we experience either by creating a fully immersive experience like in VR or by blending in the virtual and "real" worlds like in AR and MR.

The sustained success of XR in the workplace largely hinges on its ability to facilitate efficient user interactions. Similar to interacting with objects in the real world, users in XR typically interact with virtual integrants like objects, menus, windows, …

The Effects Of Primary And Secondary Task Workloads On Cybersickness In Immersive Virtual Active Exploration Experiences, Rohith Venkatakrishnan

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Virtual reality (VR) technology promises to transform humanity. The technology enables users to explore and interact with computer-generated environments that can be simulated to approximate or deviate from reality. This creates an endless number of ways to propitiously apply the technology in our lives. It follows that large technological conglomerates are pushing for the widespread adoption of VR, financing the creation of the Metaverse - a hypothetical representation of the next iteration of the internet.

Even with VR technology's continuous growth, its widespread adoption remains long overdue. This can largely be attributed to an affliction called cybersickness, an analog to …

Understanding The Role Of Interactivity And Explanation In Adaptive Experiences, Lijie Guo

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Adaptive experiences have been an active area of research in the past few decades, accompanied by advances in technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Whether the currently ongoing research on adaptive experiences has focused on personalization algorithms, explainability, user engagement, or privacy and security, there is growing interest and resources in developing and improving these research focuses. Even though the research on adaptive experiences has been dynamic and rapidly evolving, achieving a high level of user engagement in adaptive experiences remains a challenge. %????? This dissertation aims to uncover ways to engage users in adaptive experiences by incorporating …

Using Immersive Technology To Improve Mechanical Design: Use Cases, A Review Of Current Technology, And An Experiment In Requirement Elicitation In Virtual Reality, William Hawthorne

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There has been a growing trend in the use of immersive technologies within engineering design. This research is focused on understanding how Virtual Reality (VR) technologies support design reviews. Modern tools including virtual reality hardware and software were tested for current capabilities and challenges. In a review of literature, two key gaps are identified: the rapid advancements of VR and AR technology and limited formal studies to determine the costs and benefits of immersive technology within engineering design reviews. This research has resulted in three key outcomes. First, use cases of immersive reality technologies are identified, through the lens of …

Procedural City Generation With Combined Architectures For Real-Time Visualization, Griffin Poyck

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The work and research of this paper sought to build upon traditional city generation and simulation in creating a tool that both realistically simulates cities and their prominent features and also creates aesthetic and artistically rich cities using assets that combine several contemporary or near contemporary architectural styles. The major city features simulated are the surrounding terrain, road networks, individual buildings, and building placement. The tools used to both create and integrate these features were created in Houdini with Unreal Engine 5 as the intended final destination. This research was influenced by the city, town, and road networking of Ghost …

Accessible Virtual Reality For Older Adults, Aaron Gluck

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Virtual reality (VR) has grown significantly since the commercial release of the Oculus Rift in March 2016. This growth accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, revolutionizing how individuals and businesses work, socialize, exercise, and stay entertained. However, commercial VR systems are not designed to be accessible to people with disabilities. While researchers have explored aspects of VR accessibility for people with disabilities, there is minimal research on accessible VR for older adults. Older adults (65+) self-report the highest rate of disabilities which may result in VR accessibility barriers, making this the ideal group to study the accessibility of VR.

This dissertation …