To what extent can virtual reality (VR) for cultural heritage support contemporary audiences in exploring unfamiliar human values and complicated socio-economic contexts? While collaborative VR experiences are increasingly used to inform people about the past, their application to more speculative matters - e.g., alternative social values - to foster more varied outcomes, like historical empathy and care, is uncommon. This paper investigates how archaeological interpretations of egalitarian ways of living can be translated into social interaction design for heritage VR, and what impacts these interaction patterns have on participants. We present ÇVR, a multi-user immersive VR experience that prioritizes values-led engagement through collaboration, with the aim of supporting reflection beyond conventional educational outcomes. Seventeen pairs of collocated participants explore a reconstruction of a Neolithic heritage site and, through guided tasks and conversation, perform social practices suggesting egalitarian values, inspired by archaeological evidence. Our research finds that these interactions promote mutual support, perspective-taking, collaborative meaning-making, and affective engagement with both the people of the past and their present-day partners. We contribute a framework for operationalizing hypothesized human values through social interaction design in heritage VR, together with empirical insights into how collaborative interaction can support historical empathy, care, and reflective engagement with the past.
ObjectiveExtended reality (XR) can incorporate cognitive training into sensory, cognitive-motor and functionally oriented tasks, but delivery depends on matching task and interaction demands to participants. We examined how a progressively introduced XR component could be integrated and adapted within routine cognitive stimulation for older adults with mild or early cognitive impairment, with exploratory comparison of cognitive and functional change against computerised cognitive training alone.MethodsThis single-centre, non-randomised controlled trial included 70 rehabilitation courses from 59 individuals. Both groups received supervised computerised cognitive training for 12 weeks; 45 courses allocated 15–20 min of scheduled sessions to XR, while 25 received computerised cognitive training alone. XR progressed from familiarisation and guided 360° environments to mixed-reality cognitive-motor tasks, immersive everyday-task virtual reality and controller-based cognitive exercises. Exposure, task and interface difficulties, adaptations, adverse symptoms and usability were recorded. Exploratory comparisons of the trial’s prespecified primary cognitive and functional outcomes used generalised estimating equations (GEE) with participant-level clustering and Holm adjustment.ResultsAcross 45 XR-supported courses, 729 participant-exposures were recorded and 715 (98.1%) were fully delivered. Task understanding or execution difficulties affected 25/43 controller-based XR courses, compared with 5/40 mixed-reality and 6/43 immersive everyday-task virtual reality courses. Interaction or interface difficulties occurred only with controller-based XR (4/43, 9.3%). Patient-perceived usability was 68.50 ± 16.57/100 and headset comfort and tolerability 81.99 ± 14.54/100. Professional-perceived usability was 85/100 (n = 4). Adverse symptoms occurred in 30/729 exposures (4.1%), affecting 14/45 XR participants (31.1%), with no serious adverse events or symptom-related discontinuations. In 38 XR-supported and 23 non-XR pre-post courses, exploratory adjusted between-group differences remained after Holm adjustment for the Mini-Mental State Examination (+1.62, p = 0.013) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (+1.88, p = 0.030), but not Lawton-Brody or other cognitive outcomes.ConclusionProgressively introduced, clinician-supervised XR was repeatedly deliverable within routine cognitive stimulation, with adverse symptoms uncommon at the exposure level and no serious events. Rather than treating XR as a uniform intervention, these findings support selecting and adapting configurations according to their immersion, interaction and task demands, participant capabilities and practical delivery conditions. Exploratory MMSE and MoCA between-group differences warrant further controlled study but do not establish an XR-specific treatment effect.Clinical Trial RegistrationNCT06977815, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06977815.
IntroductionEye gaze is a core channel of nonverbal communication, yet designing an embodied virtual agent (EVA) that conveys gaze clearly in virtual reality (VR) without inducing discomfort remains challenging. We investigated how explicitly depicting the current gaze target within the eye region affects (i) gaze decoding (social information transfer), (ii) avatar impression and perceptual comfort (uncanny valley related responses), and (iii) social presence during interaction.MethodsWe conducted a within-subject VR study (N = 24) using a Varjo XR-3. Participants experienced three EVA eye designs: Pupil (minimally augmented eyes without explicit target depiction), Blend (an iris scaffold retained while the gaze target is depicted in a reflection-like manner), and Projection (iris/pupil removed and the current gaze target projected onto the eye region). Task 1 was an object-based gaze-identification task measuring accuracy and decision time, followed by a brief Likert questionnaire on perceived readability and eye impression. Task 2 was a joint-attention interaction in which the EVA contingently followed the participant’s gaze, followed by a brief Likert questionnaire on joint-attention experience, co-presence, perceived contingency, and eye impression. After all conditions, participants completed a comparative post-experiment questionnaire.ResultsIncreasing gaze-target explicitness improved gaze decoding: Projection yielded the highest objective accuracy and was most frequently selected as the easiest condition for understanding the EVA’s gaze, while Blend and Projection improved perceived readability relative to Pupil. However, explicit projection incurred perceptual costs: Projection was rated as the least natural and was overwhelmingly selected as the most uncanny, whereas Pupil was rated as the most natural. Blend was most frequently preferred overall, indicating that users often favoured a compromise between readability and perceptual comfort. Social-presence-related ratings in Task 2 did not reliably differ across eye designs when gaze behaviour was held constant.ConclusionMaking gaze targets explicit within the eye region can improve gaze communication in VR but risks discomfort from perceptual mismatch. Hybrid designs that embed target information within an eye-like appearance may offer a practical balance between communicative utility and perceptual comfort for social VR agents.
BackgroundHigher education institutions face constraints on laboratory space, staffing, and safety, motivating interest in immersive virtual reality (iVR) as a complement to laboratory teaching.ObjectiveThis pilot study aimed to compare knowledge‐score changes across two sequences of iVR and physical laboratory titration training in a mandatory first-semester Life Sciences course and to explore relationships within the Cognitive Affective Model of Immersive Learning (CAMIL).MethodsNinety‐one students completed both activities in instructor‐assigned, counterbalanced sequences and took a 13‐item knowledge test at three time points (baseline and after each activity). Questionnaires assessed CAMIL constructs and usability. Knowledge scores were analyzed with a baseline‐adjusted linear mixed‐effects model with participant random intercepts; questionnaire data were analyzed in an exploratory reduced path model with bootstrap confidence intervals.ResultsMean knowledge scores increased from 39.80 out of 52 points at baseline (SD = 4.02) to 42.87 after the first activity (SD = 4.47) and 43.18 after the second (SD = 4.35). The first‐period VR‐first minus laboratory-first difference was –1.26 points (95% CI [–2.74, 0.22], p = 0.094). The time‐by‐sequence interaction was also imprecisely estimated (b = 0.76, 95% CI [–0.42, 1.94], p = 0.204). Knowledge-test reliability was limited (Cronbachs α = 0.349, 0.579, and 0.587). In the path model, presence was negatively associated with cognitive load (β = –0.469, bootstrap 95% CI [–0.628, –0.344]); the remaining path intervals included zero. Usability averaged 71.75 (SD = 13.88; n = 90).ConclusionsThese findings describe knowledge-score increases during a combined training sequence but do not establish equivalent learning outcomes, a causal modality effect, or procedural skill transfer. Limited knowledge-test reliability further constrains interpretation.
This study presents an extension of an industrial augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) disassembly station with inspection functions for reusable components recovered from end-of-life washing machines. While prior work focused on monitor-based AR guidance and AI-supported validation of disassembly steps, this paper addresses the next integration step: inspection-aware AR workflows that connect worker guidance, AI/sensor-based condition assessment, human confirmation, and reuse documentation. Specifically, we outline how inspection procedures for the two most valuable components targeted for reuse (printed circuit boards (PCBs) and the washing unit) can be integrated into the station concept. For PCBs, a burn-damage classification pipeline was developed. Preliminary frame-level validation on an independent real-world dataset showed that several models detect most visibly burnt PCB views, but their low specificity currently prevents autonomous reuse decisions. The AI component is therefore used as a preliminary screening and warning mechanism whose output is reviewed by the worker. For the washing unit, the developed testing device demonstrates the feasibility of pressure-loss and vibration measurements directly after disassembly; these measurements are presently proof-of-concept demonstrations rather than quantitatively validated diagnostics. The primary contribution of this Brief Research Report is therefore the system-level integration of AR guidance, visual and sensor-based assessment, human confirmation, reuse classification, and documentation into one continuous worker-facing workflow. The results establish integrated feasibility and preliminary validation rather than industrial inspection reliability.
