Innovative protocol of an exploratory study evaluating the acceptability of a humanoid robot at home of deaf children with cochlear implants.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a research methodology for the assessment of the acceptability of a humanoid robot at home for children with cochlear implants (CI). The quality of audiology rehabilitation for cochlear implanted child administrated at the hospital with pluri-weekly sessions is a major prognostic factor in the outcome on communications abilities, but represents also a constraint for families related to the access to care that are more difficult. Further, home training with tools would balance the equitable distribution of care in the territory and promote the child's progress. The humanoid robot should allow an ecological approach to this complementary training. Before developing this approach, it is necessary to study the acceptability of the humanoid robot at home, both by cochlear implanted child and their families. Ten families were chosen to have a humanoid robot at home, to explore their acceptability of the humanoid robot Pepper. The study lasts for 1 month per participants (i.e. cochlear implemented children and parent). Participants were invited to use the robot at home as much as they want. The humanoid robot Pepper was able to communicate and proposed activities not related to rehabilitation. Once a week during the study, data were collected from participants (questionnaires and robot's logs) and the smooth running of the study was checked. Questionnaires are used to evaluate the acceptability of the robot by children and parents. User data from the robot's logs are used to quantify the time and the actual use of the robot over the period of the study. Results of the experimentation will be reported, once all 10 participants have completed their passation. The robot is anticipated to be used and accepted by children with cochlear implants and their families. Clinical trial registration: Clinical Trials ID: NCT04832373; https://clinicaltrials.gov/.

Multimodal interface and reliability displays: Effect on attention, mode awareness, and trust in partially automated vehicles.

The goal of this study is to evaluate the effect of a multimodal interface indicating the limits of automation in order to stimulate an appropriate level of attention and to induce accurate mode awareness and trust in partial driving automation. Participants drove in a driving simulator with partial driving automation and were confronted with surprising situations of suspension of driving automation systems in different contexts. They drove the simulator during three driving sessions, with either a multimodal interface indicating the limits of automation or a visual basic interface. Their driving performance, ocular behavior, and subjective evaluation of trust and workload were evaluated. The results revealed that the multimodal interface stimulates an appropriate level of attention and increases mode awareness and trust in automation, but these effects are context-dependent. The indications of the limits of automation improved the knowledge regarding automation, but this knowledge did not necessarily lead to improved driving performance. Design solutions are discussed to support the improvement of driving performance for take-overs in vehicles equipped with partial driving automation.

Presence in video games: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of game design choices.

Sense of presence is a widely assessed dimension of video game player experience. A systematic literature review and a meta-analysis were conducted to provide a more comprehensive view of the elements of game design that have an effect on the sense of presence, as well as its different dimensions studied and assessment techniques. The review revealed that many major categories of game design aspects were well represented. The meta-analysis revealed that several game design factors have significant effects on different dimensions of presence. The largest revealed effects were that playing games with a head-mounted display and motion controller rather than a monitor display and non-motion controller has a large effect on global presence. Also, playing with human co-players rather than computer-controlled co-players and playing cooperatively rather than competitively have a very large and large effect on social presence, respectively. Implications for future research are discussed, such as investigating the effects of design factors on presence in a more targeted manner, systematically assessing presence with its most relevant sub-dimensions, and using more similar rating scales. Design recommendations, with their expected impact on players' sense of presence, are proposed.

Crossing the street in front of an autonomous vehicle: An investigation of eye contact between drivengers and vulnerable road users.

Communication between road users is a major key to coordinate movement and increase roadway safety. The aim of this work was to grasp how pedestrians (Experiment A), cyclists (Experiment B), and kick scooter users (Experiment C) sought to visually communicate with drivengers when they would face autonomous vehicles (AVs). In each experiment, participants (n = 462, n = 279, and n = 202, respectively) were asked to imagine themselves in described situations of encounters between a specific type of vulnerable road user (e.g., pedestrian) and a human driver in an approaching car. The human driver state and the communicative means of the approaching car through an external Human-Machine Interface (eHMI) were manipulated between the scenarios. The participants were prompted to rate from "never" to "always" (6-point Likert scale) the frequency with which they would seek eye contact with the human driver either in order to express their willingness to cross or to make their effective decision to cross. Our findings revealed that a passive human driver in an AV with no visual checking on the road triggered a decline in vulnerable road users' desire to communicate by eye contact (Experiments A-C). Moreover, the results of Experiment C demonstrated that the speed screen, the text message screen, and the vibrating mobile app eHMI signals diminished kick scooter users' desire to communicate visually with the human driver, with some age-based differences. This suggested a better comprehension of the approaching car's intentions by the kick scooter users, driven by the features of the eHMI.

Searching in clutter: Visual behavior and performance of expert action video game players.

Searching for targets among distractors in visual scenes can be more difficult due to the presence of clutter. However, studies in various domains have shown differentiated effects according to the expertise of the searcher. The present study extended these findings to the domain of action video games expertise. 58 participants, split in 2 groups (action video game players and non-action video game players) searched for targets in visual scenes under two clutter conditions (uncluttered and high clutter). Reaction times and accuracy served as measures of performance, and the visual behavior was assessed using the number and duration of eye fixations. Our findings suggest that visual clutter has a negative influence on performance and alters the visual behavior during visual search in action video game scenes. Our results also suggest that expert action video game players might use different visual strategies to cope with clutter, leading however to no performance benefits.

Impairment of shooting performance by background complexity and motion.

In many visual displays such as virtual environments, human tasks involve objects superimposed on both complex and moving backgrounds. However, most studies investigated the influence of background complexity or background motion in isolation. Two experiments were designed to investigate the joint influences of background complexity and lateral motion on a simple shooting task typical of video games. Participants had to perform the task on the moving and static versions of backgrounds of three levels of complexity, while their eye movements were recorded. The backgrounds displayed either an abstract (Experiment 1) or a naturalistic (Experiment 2) virtual environment. The results showed that performance was impaired by background motion in both experiments. The effects of motion and complexity were additive for the abstract background and multiplicative for the naturalistic background. Eye movement recordings showed that performance impairments reflected at least in part the impact of the background visual features on gaze control.

Impact of the motion and visual complexity of the background on players' performance in video game-like displays.

The visual interfaces of virtual environments such as video games often show scenes where objects are superimposed on a moving background. Three experiments were designed to better understand the impact of the complexity and/or overall motion of two types of visual backgrounds often used in video games on the detection and use of superimposed, stationary items. The impact of background complexity and motion was assessed during two typical video game tasks: a relatively complex visual search task and a classic, less demanding shooting task. Background motion impaired participants' performance only when they performed the shooting game task, and only when the simplest of the two backgrounds was used. In contrast, and independently of background motion, performance on both tasks was impaired when the complexity of the background increased. Eye movement recordings demonstrated that most of the findings reflected the impact of low-level features of the two backgrounds on gaze control.

Maximizing players' anticipation by applying the proximity-compatibility principle to the design of video games.

OBJECTIVE: Two experiments were conducted to investigate elements of the spatial design of video game interfaces. BACKGROUND: In most video games, both the objects and the background scene are moving. Players must pay attention to what appears in the background to anticipate events while looking at head-up displays. According to the proximity-compatibility principle, game-related information should be placed as close as possible to the anticipation zone. METHOD: Participants played a video game where they had to anticipate the upward movement of obstacles. The score location was manipulated. The average vertical gaze position and dispersion were used to assess anticipation and extent of visual scanning, respectively. RESULTS: Putting the score at the bottom rather than the top of the game window, within the anticipation zone, was expected to minimize attentional moves. Experiment I revealed lower average gaze positions and reduced extent of visual scanning in that condition, but the score performance did not improve significantly. Experiment 2 demonstrated that players' performance increased compared with the bottom condition when the score was displayed just below but outside the game window, despite an increased extent of visual scanning. CONCLUSION: Positioning the score just outside the anticipation zone facilitated anticipation of the movement of obstacles and led to better performance than when the score overlapped with the game anticipation zone. APPLICATION: For games requiring visual anticipation, contextual information should be located in the direction of anticipation but not within the anticipation zone. This recommendation complements the proximity compatibility principle for simple dynamic displays.