Telepresence robots have the potential to change our experiences in galleries and museums, allowing for a range of hybrid interactions for visitors and museum professionals, improving accessibility, offering activities or information, and providing a range of practical use cases (e.g. the robots augmenting museum exhibits).We present the results of 3 qualitative studies conducted in the UK exploring the acceptability (1 -interviews with museum professionals with no previous exposure to telepresence), acceptance (2 -focus groups for initial exposure to telepresence robots), and adoption (3 -interviews with museum professionals with long-term exposure to

Playing games has been shown to be an effective method of postwork recovery.Previous research has shown that gameplay with high cognitive involvement is effective for recovery.This finding conflicts with models of mental workload (MWL), which suggest that people feel best when cycling between high and low MWL.To unpack the relationship between recovery and mental workload, we designed a lab experiment where 40 participants experienced different combinations of high and low MWL while undertaking both work tasks and recovery gameplay, and we collected both selfreport and physiological (fNIRS) data.Results showed that high and low MWL games created different impacts on recovery, depending on the MWL of the prior work task.While fNIRS measurements of MWL varied as expected during work tasks, experience of MWL when playing games was not evident in the prefrontal cortex.We conclude by discussing the relationship between mental workload and theories of recovery.

Cognitive style has been shown to influence users’ interaction with search interfaces. However, as a fundamental dimension of cognitive styles, the relationship between the Verbal-Imagery (VI) cognitive style dimension and search behaviour has not been studied thoroughly, and it is not clear whether VI cognitive style can be used to inform search user interface design. We present a study (N=29), investigating how search behaviour and mental workload (MWL) changes relate to VI cognitive styles by examining participants’ search behaviour across three increasingly complex tasks. MWL was subjectively rated by participants, and blood oxygenation changes in the prefrontal cortex were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Virtual Reality (VR) applications commonly use the illusion of self-motion (vection) to simulate experiences such as running, driving, or flying. However, this can lead to cybersickness, which diminishes the experience of users, and can even lead to disengagement with this platform. In this paper we present a study in which we show that users performing a cognitive task while experiencing a VR rollercoaster reported reduced symptoms of cybersickness. Furthermore, we collected and analysed brain activity data from our participants during their experience using functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS): preliminary analysis suggests the possibility that this technology may be able to detect the experience of cybersickness. Together, these results can assist the creators of VR experiences, both through mitigation of cybersickness in the design process, and by better understanding the experiences of their users.

Increasingly, robots are adopted for routine tasks such as cleaning and disinfection of public spaces, raising questions about attitudes and trust of professional cleaners who might in future have robots as teammates, and whether the general public feels reassured when disinfection is carried out by robots. In this paper, we present the results of a mixed-methods user study exploring how trust and reassurance by both professional cleaners and members of the public is affected by the use of a UV-C disinfection robot and information about its performance after disinfecting a simulated classroom. The results show a range of insights for those designing and wishing to deploy UV-C robots: we found that trust and reassurance are affected by information about the UV-C robot’s task performance, with more information coinciding with significantly more agreement to be able to judge that the robot is doing a good job. However, care should be taken when designing information about task performance to avoid misinterpretation. Overall, the results suggest a generally positive picture regarding the use of UV-C disinfecting robots and that cleaning professionals would be happy to have them as their teammates; however, there were also some concerns regarding the effect on less-skilled jobs. Taken together, our results provide considerations to make UV-C robots welcomed by cleaning teams as well as to provide reassurance to space users.

The motivation behind using physiological measures to estimate cognitive activity is typically to build technology that can help people to understand themselves and their work, or indeed for systems to do so and adapt. While functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been shown to reliably reflect manipulations of mental workload in different work tasks, we still need to establish whether fNIRS can differentiate variety within common office-like tasks in order to broaden our understanding of the factors involved in tracking them in real working conditions. 20 healthy participants (8 females, 12 males), whose work included office-like tasks, took part in a user study that investigated a) the sensitivity of fNIRS for measuring mental workload variations in representations of everyday reading and writing tasks, and b) how representations of natural interruptions are reflected in the data. Results supported fNIRS measuring PFC activation in differentiating between workload levels for reading tasks but not writing tasks in terms of increased oxygenated haemoglobin (O2Hb) and decreased deoxygenated haemoglobin (HHb), for harder conditions compared to easier conditions. There was considerable support for fNIRS in detecting changes in workload levels due to interruptions. Variations in workload levels during the interruptions could be understood in relation to spare capacity models. These findings may guide future work into sustained monitoring of cognitive activity in real-world settings.

Feedback is valuable for allowing us to improve on tasks. While retrospective feedback can help us improve for next time, feedback ‘in action’ can allow us to improve the outcome of on-going tasks. In this article, we use data from functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy to provide participants with feedback about their mental workload levels during high-workload tasks. We evaluate the impact of this feedback on task performance and perceived task performance, in comparison to industry standard mid-task self-assessments, and explore participants’ perceptions of this feedback. In line with previous work, we confirm that deploying self-reporting methods affect both perceived and actual performance. Conversely, we conclude that our objective concurrent feedback correlated more closely with task demand, supported reflection in action, and did not negatively affect performance. Future work, however, should focus on the design of this feedback and the potential behaviour changes that will result.

Amongst the many tasks in our lives, we encounter web forms on a regular basis, whether they are mundane like registering for a website, or complex and important like tax returns. There are many aspects of Usability, but one concern for user interfaces is to reduce mental workload and error rates. Whilst most assessment of mental workload is subjective and retrospective reporting by users, we examine the potential of functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a tool for objectively and concurrently measuring mental workload during usability testing. We use this technology to evaluate the design of three different form layouts for a car insurance claim process, and show that a form divided into subforms increases mental workload, contrary to our expectations. We conclude that fNIRS is highly suitable for objectively examining mental workload during usability testing, and will therefore be able to provide more detailed insight than summative retrospective assessments. Further, for the fNIRS community, we show that the technology can easily move beyond typical psychology tasks, and be used for more natural study tasks.

Recent efforts have shown that functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has potential value for brain sensing in HCI user studies. Research has shown that, although large head movement significantly affects fNIRS data, typical keyboard use, mouse movement, and non-task-related verbalisations do not affect measurements during Verbal tasks. This work aims to examine the Reliability of fNIRS, by 1) confirming these prior findings, and 2) significantly extending our understanding of how artefacts affect recordings during Spatial tasks, since much of user interfaces and interaction is inherently spatial. Our results show that artefacts have a significantly different impact during Verbal and Spatial tasks. We contribute clearer insights into using fNIRS as a tool within HCI user studies.

The Think Aloud Protocol (TAP) is a verbalisation technique widely employed in HCI user studies to give insight into user experience, yet little work has explored the impact that TAPs have on participants during user studies. This paper utilises a brain sensing technique, fNIRS, to observe the effect that TAPs have on participants. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a brain sensing technology that offers the potential to provide continuous, detailed insight into brain activity, enabling an objective view of cognitive processes during complex tasks. Participants were asked to perform a mathematical task under 4 conditions: nonsense verbalisations, passive concurrent think aloud protocol, invasive concurrent think aloud protocol, and a baseline of silence. Subjective ratings and performance measures were collected during the study. Our results provide a novel view into the effect that different forms of verbalisation have on workload during tasks. Further, the results provide a means for estimating the effect of spoken artefacts when measuring workload, which is another step towards our goal of proactively involving fNIRS analysis in ecologically valid user studies.