research-article

Investigating the reason for increased postural instability in virtual reality for persons with balance impairments

Authors:

Sharif Mohammad Shahnewaz Ferdous,

Tanvir Irfan Chowdhury,

Imtiaz Muhammad Arafat,

John QuarlesAuthors Info & Claims

VRST '18: Proceedings of the 24th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology

Article No.: 39, Pages 1 - 7

https://doi.org/10.1145/3281505.3281547

Published: 28 November 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate how different visual components of Virtual Reality (VR), such as field of view, frame rate, and display resolution affect postural stability in VR. Although previous studies identified these visual components as some of the primary factors that differ significantly in VR from reality, the effect of each component on postural stability is yet unknown. While most people experience postural instability in VR, it is worse for people with balance impairments (BIs). This may be because they depend more on their visual cues to maintain postural stability. We conducted a study with ten people with balance impairments due to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and seven people without balance impairments to investigate the effect of different visual components on postural stability. In each condition, we varied one of the visual components and kept all other components fixed. Each participant explored the virtual environment (VE) in a controlled fashion to make sure that the effect of the visual components was consistent for all participants. Results from our study suggest that for people with BIs, decreased field of view and decreased frame rate have significant negative effects on postural stability, but the effect of display resolution is inconclusive. However, for people without BIs, there were no significant differences for any of the visual components. Therefore, VR systems targeting people with balance impairments should focus on improving field of view and frame rate before improving display resolution.

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Cited By

Mahmud MCordova AQuarles J(2023)The Eyes Have It: Visual Feedback Methods to Make Walking in Immersive Virtual Reality More Accessible for People With Mobility Impairments While Utilizing Head-Mounted DisplaysProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3608406(1-10)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597638.3608406
Mahmud MCordova AQuarles J(2023)Visual Cues for a Steadier You: Visual Feedback Methods Improved Standing Balance in Virtual Reality for People with Balance ImpairmentsIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2023.332024429:11(4666-4675)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TVCG.2023.3320244
Mahmud MCordova AQuarles J(2023)Auditory, Vibrotactile, or Visual? Investigating the Effective Feedback Modalities to Improve Standing Balance in Immersive Virtual Reality for People with Balance Impairments Due to Type 2 Diabetes2023 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR)10.1109/ISMAR59233.2023.00072(573-582)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR59233.2023.00072
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Index Terms

Investigating the reason for increased postural instability in virtual reality for persons with balance impairments
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Accessibility
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI design and evaluation methods
      1. User studies
    2. Interaction paradigms
      1. Virtual reality

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

VRST '18: Proceedings of the 24th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology

November 2018

570 pages

ISBN:9781450360869

DOI:10.1145/3281505

Editor:
Stephen N. Spencer
University of Washington
,
General Chair:
Shigeo Morishima
Waseda University
,
Program Chairs:
Yuichi Itoh
Osaka University
,
Takaaki Shiratori
Facebook Reality Labs
,
Yonghao Yue
The University of Tokyo
,
Rob Lindeman
University of Canterbury

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 28 November 2018

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VRST '18: 24th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology

November 28 - December 1, 2018

Tokyo, Japan

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Overall Acceptance Rate 66 of 254 submissions, 26%

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Cited By

Mahmud MCordova AQuarles J(2023)The Eyes Have It: Visual Feedback Methods to Make Walking in Immersive Virtual Reality More Accessible for People With Mobility Impairments While Utilizing Head-Mounted DisplaysProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3608406(1-10)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597638.3608406
Mahmud MCordova AQuarles J(2023)Visual Cues for a Steadier You: Visual Feedback Methods Improved Standing Balance in Virtual Reality for People with Balance ImpairmentsIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2023.332024429:11(4666-4675)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TVCG.2023.3320244
Mahmud MCordova AQuarles J(2023)Auditory, Vibrotactile, or Visual? Investigating the Effective Feedback Modalities to Improve Standing Balance in Immersive Virtual Reality for People with Balance Impairments Due to Type 2 Diabetes2023 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR)10.1109/ISMAR59233.2023.00072(573-582)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR59233.2023.00072
Dudley JYin LGaraj VKristensson P(2023)Inclusive Immersion: a review of efforts to improve accessibility in virtual reality, augmented reality and the metaverseVirtual Reality10.1007/s10055-023-00850-827:4(2989-3020)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10055-023-00850-8
Dietz DOechsner COu CChiossi FSarto FMayer SButz A(2022)Walk This Beam: Impact of Different Balance Assistance Strategies and Height Exposure on Performance and Physiological Arousal in VRProceedings of the 28th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology10.1145/3562939.3567818(1-12)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3562939.3567818
Mahmud MStewart MCordova AQuarles J(2022)Standing Balance Improvement Using Vibrotactile Feedback in Virtual RealityProceedings of the 28th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology10.1145/3562939.3565638(1-11)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3562939.3565638
Mahmud MStewart MCordova AQuarles J(2022)Auditory Feedback for Standing Balance Improvement in Virtual Reality2022 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)10.1109/VR51125.2022.00100(782-791)Online publication date: Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/VR51125.2022.00100
Mahmud MStewart MCordova AQuarles J(2022)Auditory Feedback to Make Walking in Virtual Reality More Accessible2022 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR)10.1109/ISMAR55827.2022.00103(847-856)Online publication date: Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR55827.2022.00103
Liang HChi SChen BLi YTai THwang Y(2021)The Effects of Visual Backgrounds in the Virtual Environments on the Postural Stability of StandingIEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering10.1109/TNSRE.2021.308702129(1129-1137)Online publication date: 2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/TNSRE.2021.3087021

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