Description
This project will focus on understanding the indoor navigation process. If people want to move to a specific location and are unsure of the path or an emergency occurs, people require navigational assistance. However for navigational tools to be most effective, we need to make sure people trust the technology in question and the first step towards fostering trust is making sure it functions as good as possible. This project will build on previous work done by both students and researchers at UT and extend their findings.
Specifically in this project we will test the effectiveness of certain navigational helps (i.e., multimodal or unimodal signals via handheld devices) on navigational success as well as physiological (e.g., assessed via heart-rate measurements) and subjective measures of arousal. Depending on the specific research question we may also change the virtual environment to reflect an indoor fire (e.g., adding smoke to the VR environment).
Depending on the study outcome and setup, there is an opportunity to publish this research in an international peer-reviewed journal.
This project will have you work in a larger research team comprised of multiple students across different faculties as well as researchers and the BMS lab. In the team there are also researchers from outside UT (e.g., Human Computer Interaction speciliat from the University of Victoria in Canada).
Research Questions
How can we navigate users most effectively in a virtual environment? Does the complexity of the route or the complexity of the environment matter? How do different types of warning signals and the method by which they are delivered change behvaiour?
Type of Research
Experimental research. It is expected that the student carries out the research on-site, in the lab using (among other things) a VR headset provided to them. Experience with VR and Unity is beneficial but not required.
Key words
Navigation, multimodal signals, virtual reality, warning signal processing, trust in technology, emergencies, fire escape
Information
Please contact Steven Watson (s.j.watson@utwente.nl) when you are interested in this assignment.
Start
Start is flexible.
This assignment can be coupled with a previous internship. If the internship route is chosen a more elaborate setup is expected to be developed and piloted.
Literature
- Arning, K., Ziefle, M., Li, M., & Kobbelt, L. (2012, December). Insights into user experiences and acceptance of mobile indoor navigation devices. In Proceedings of the 11th international conference on mobile and ubiquitous multimedia (pp. 1-10).
- Large, D. R., & Burnett, G. E. (2014). The effect of different navigation voices on trust and attention while using in-vehicle navigation systems. Journal of safety research, 49, 69-e1.
- Johanson, C., Gutwin, C., & Mandryk, R. L. (2017, October). The effects of navigation assistance on spatial learning and performance in a 3D game. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 341-353).
- Johanson, C., Gutwin, C., & Mandryk, R. (2023). Trails, rails, and over-reliance: How navigation assistance affects route-finding and spatial learning in virtual environments. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 103097.
- Trapsilawati, F., Wijayanto, T., & Jourdy, E. S. (2019). Human-computer trust in navigation systems: Google maps vs Waze. Communications in Science and Technology, 4(1), 38-43.
- Williams, M. A., Hurst, A., & Kane, S. K. (2013, October). " Pray before you step out" describing personal and situational blind navigation behaviors. In Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-8).
- Ge, Y., Qi, H., & Qu, W. (2023). The factors impacting the use of navigation systems: A study based on the technology acceptance model. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 93, 106-117.
- Laor, T., & Galily, Y. (2022). In WAZE we trust? GPS-based navigation application users’ behavior and patterns of dependency. Plos one, 17(11), e0276449.
- Friehs, M. A., Schmalbrock, P., Merz, S., Dechant, M., Hartwigsen, G., & Frings, C. (2024). A touching advantage: cross-modal stop-signals improve reactive response inhibition. Experimental Brain Research, 1-20.