From: BOB@advanced-robotics-research-centre.salford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: SCI: Independent on Sunday report on VR


Isn't it amazing!  The Independent must have been sadly short of news
to publish this!  At 2 UK conferences after the event, the atmosphere
amongst the practitioners and delegates was one of "so what?!"  This
is a topic which has featured at all VR conferences (including those
attended by journalists from the Independent) since Computer Graphics
'90 and VR '91 in London!  A few notes:

(1) Wann et al did not prompt the UK's Health & Safety Executive to
set the VR study up.  We did!  Colin Mackay of the HSE and I were
involved 2 years ago in a radio interview on this subject, and have
been talking ever since.  Sadly ARRL did not win the contract, but I
was under the impression that it was awarded to Nottingham University
(at least I hope it was; they have an excellent reputation for
thorough human factors research).

(2) The studies referred to have been criticised at a number of
European VR functions, mainly on the basis that the experimental
designs were not up to scratch and that scant attention had been paid
to the myriad of factors contributing to "Cybersickness".  Although
everyone blames the HMD, there are other cognitive, system, task-
related features which come into play and must be taken into account.
Designing a thorough and well-controlled VR study is difficult but,
given access to the right range of equipment, quite possible.

(3) For information, the Edinburgh study was, I believe, based on a
Real World Graphics board-based VR system with a VPL EyePhone LX, the
MOD Study (carried out by Clare Regan at the Army Personnel Research
Establishment in Farnborough whilst they were waiting for funds to
come through for their main line of work) used a Division ProVision
System with, I think, a Flight Helmet.

(4) The Independent is one of the UK's best-known "over-glamifiers" of
VR - front page status for these studies surprised us all!

(5) There is little doubt that there are problems, but these studies
have only considered the tip of the iceberg and may be extrapolating
too far on the basis of quite specific results.  I only hope that some
of the proposals we put into our 102-page proposal to the HSE get
taken on-board.  Whilst I don't want to appear jaundiced or blow our
trumpet too heavily, unless attention is given to the experimental
design, the virtual environment used, the selection and even invention
of appropriate objective and subjective measures, then a lot of the
work will be scientifically meaningless.

Prof. Bob Stone
Technical Manager (Advanced Robotics Research Limited)