Immersive virtual reality (IVR) is being incorporated into education, but not all learners have expertise in using this technology. As such, this research examined whether pre-training in IVR can reduce the novelty of this technology and enhance learning from IVR lessons and understand the role of individual differences in managing incoming information (i.e., executive function) and capacity for holding information (i.e., working memory capacity) in learning from an IVR lesson. Participants were split into two conditions; half of the participants played a game in IVR to become knowledgeable about IVR technology and the other half did not play this game. All participants then learned a lesson in IVR, took a posttest, and completed working memory tasks. The results showed that playing the game prior to learning in IVR did not change the learners’ experience of distraction or their learning outcome, indicating that IVR game-playing was not an effective form of pre-training. Additionally, several measures of executive function and working memory capacity were correlated with posttest performance, indicating that students with better executive function learn better with distracting media such as IVR, regardless of pre-training. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The goal of this study was to determine whether learning processes and outcomes are affected by the emotional tone of the computer-generated voice in a narrated slideshow. In a between-subjects design, participants viewed a narrated slideshow on lightning formation involving a computer-generated female (Experiment 1) or male voice (Experiment 2) that displayed happy, content, angry, or sad emotion. On subsequent surveys and post-tests, students could recognize positive or negative emotions conveyed by the female voice but not the male voice. The emotional tone of the instructor’s voices had minimal impact on students’ ratings of felt emotion during learning, ratings of social connection with the instructor, or scores on retention and transfer tests of learning outcome. The findings highlight the limitations of computer-generated voices to convey emotions that trigger affective, social, and cognitive processes when an onscreen instructor is absent, thereby suggesting a boundary condition for the cognitive-affective model of e-learning.

An animated agent’s believability, often defined as “the illusion of life,” has many facets, including the agent’s appearance, movements, and user interactions. Considering that human facial expressions are often not symmetrical, evaluating how facial expression asymmetries affect believability in animated agents would provide valuable insights for researchers and artists. Our research focused on facial movements and examined the impact of three dynamic facial asymmetries on users’ perception of the agent’s believability, appeal, and naturalness. Our research involved three studies: 1) a preliminary study in which we determined the maximum values to base asymmetry levels, 2) a study in which we identified what level of asymmetry yields the most perceived believability for each asymmetry location, and 3) a study in which we determined what effects different combinations of asymmetries have on perceived believability, appeal, and naturalness. The findings confirmed the effect of dynamic facial asymmetry on the agents’ perceived believability, appeal, and naturalness. Furthermore, our research suggests that including one or a combination of asymmetric eyebrow, mouth, or eyelid motions increases the agents’ perceived believability, appeal, and naturalness.

This study examines design principles for how to display financial information about a consumer loan that supports locating a value (e.g., What is the annual percentage rate (APR) for an 18-month loan?), comparing two values (e.g., Is the APR for a 24-month load greater than for an 18-month loan?), or subtracting two values (e.g., What is the difference in the APR for a 24-month load and an 18-month loan?). One hundred and thirty-three college students carried out these three types of tasks at a banking site that displayed information as a list (e.g., listing the value for interest rate, monthly payment, insurance cost, APR, amount financed, and total cost for a given duration ranging from 6 to 48 months) or as one of three types of tables or matrices (containing values for each of six variables across one axis and each of eight loan durations across the other). Accuracy and response time on each of the three types of tasks was tallied for each of the four groups. Consistent with the principle of distraction minimization, the list was the best display for locating a value. Consistent with the principle of conjoint alignment, a vertical matrix (with loan duration across columns) or horizontal matrix (with loan duration across rows) was the best for comparing two values, but an interactive matrix was less effective. Consistent with the principle of canonical form, a vertical matrix (with loan duration across columns) was the best for subtracting two values. Overall, the best information display depended on the type of task, consistent with cognitive theories of information processing.

We examined the effects of virtual characters’ body type and voice pitch on perceived audio-visual correspondence and believability. For our within-group study (N = 72), we developed nine experimental conditions using a 3 (body type: ectomorph vs. mesomorph vs. endomorph body types) × 3 (voice pitch: low vs. medium vs. high fundamental frequency [F0]) design. We found statistically significant main effects from voice pitch and statistically significant interaction effects between a virtual character’s body type and voice pitch on both the level of perceived audio-visual correspondence and believability of female and male virtual characters. For female virtual characters, we also observed an additional statistically significant main effect from body type and a statistically significant interaction effect between the participant’s biological sex and the virtual character’s voice pitch on both perceived audio-visual correspondence and believability. Moreover, the results show that perceived believability is highly correlated to perceived audio-visual correspondence. Our findings have important practical implications in applications where the virtual character is meant to be an emotional or informational guide that requires some level of perceived believability, as the findings suggest that it is possible to enhance the perceived believability of the virtual characters by generating appropriate voices through pitch manipulation of existing voices.

Can immersive virtual reality (IVR) serve as an effective venue for learning and training? The promise of learning in IVR lies in its affordances for motivating learners to engage in generative processing (i.e., cognitive processing aimed at making sense of the material). The pitfall of learning in IVR is that it can distract learners so they engage in extraneous processing (i.e., cognitive processing that does not support the instructional goal). This paper reviews (1) media comparison research we have conducted on the effectiveness of learning academic content and skills in IVR versus learning with conventional media and (2) value-added research we have conducted concerning which features can improve the instructional effectiveness of learning in IVR. The paper includes implications for practice and for further work in the area. Overall, the paper focuses on the challenges associated with determining how to reduce the distracting aspects of IVR, maintain the motivating aspects of IVR, and guide the learner towards the core instructional material.

Recent research shows that instructors commonly use politeness strategies to achieve affective scaffolding in educational contexts. The importance of affective factors such as self-confidence and interest that contribute to learner motivation is well recognized. In this paper, we describe the results of a Wizard-of-Oz experiment to study the effect of politeness strategies on both cognitive and motivational factors. We compare the results of two different politeness strategies, direct and polite, in assisting seventeen students in a computer-based learning task. We find that politeness can affect students' motivational state and help students learn difficult concepts. The results of the experiment provide a basis for the design of a polite pedagogical agent and its tutorial intervention strategies.