Several studies showed the potential of interaction technologies for assisting the performance of users during motor tasks. In particular, repetitive exercises can take advantage of novel interaction strategies in order to sustain the users efforts to maintain the target level of performance. This paper introduces a paradigm for performing a drag and drop movement of Augmented Reality 3D objects from marker to marker, using a smartphone. This interaction paradigm permits to perform repetitive exercises which can be implemented in upper limb motor training and rehabilitation tasks. After introducing the interaction paradigm, the paper describes the methodology and the results of a pilot study about the effects of AR dynamic features on the users movements and experience during repetitive motor tasks.

Innovative design features of user interfaces could assist a patient during the accomplishment of repetitive physical exercises in training and rehabilitation. Dual task paradigms can induce a change in attentional focus allocation, moving focus away from a body part which is affected by fatigue. This study proposes an interface which integrates the motion tracking capabilities of a Kinect with the touch screen input data and vibration feedback of a smart phone. This interface is exploited to design and evaluate a dual task paradigm tested through an experimental study. Purpose of such paradigm is to support upper arm rehabilitation, by generating a distraction from the target area of the limb during repetitive tasks. The data collected during the experiments and the interface itself will be analyzed and discussed.

State-of-the-art laser phonomicrosurgery (LP) used for the treatment of laryngeal abnormalities involves complex otolaryngological surgical techniques. It relies heavily on surgeon dexterity, requiring significant psychomotor skills. Equipment scale and size, laser operative distance, and the anatomically small nature of the vocal folds all combine to compound the surgical challenges. An objective measurement is therefore necessary to understand the impact of equipment design, its usability, surgeon skill, and learning, on performing LP effectively. This paper introduces imaging based feature extraction as a method to establish metrics to assess surgical performance in LP. Experimental analysis demonstrates the utility of these metrics in measuring surgical task execution vis-à-vis the task objectives. The metrics also provide for a combined rating scale giving a robust quantitative classification of the levels of surgical performance.

Robot-assisted surgical procedures, such as Laser Phonomicrosurgery (LP), suffer from susceptibility to variation in surgeon skill and equipment characteristics. Ergonomic and human-centered approaches acquire increased importance in the design of surgeon-machine interfaces. This paper proposes a protocol for comparative evaluation of surgeon-machine interfaces based on two criteria: (i) the subjective evaluation of their usability using questionnaires, and (ii) the objective evaluation of their performance using an imaging-based feature extraction method. Two interfaces in LP, the traditional (“AcuBlade”) interface and the novel (“Virtual Scalpel”) interface, were evaluated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. A series of experimental trials were conducted using the interfaces in surgery-like tasks in a controlled environment. The subjective evaluation pointed to the superiority of the Virtual Scalpel interface (score: 83.06) in terms of confidence and ease of use, and learnability, over the AcuBlade interface (score: 65.56). The objective evaluation showed the Virtual Scalpel interface having an overall score (55.96) significantly superior to the AcuBlade (51.37). It is thus shown that the multidimensional evaluation approach allowed to clearly distinguish between levels of perceived usability and effective performance of surgeon-machine interfaces from a user-centered perspective.

This paper presents a study of the fine grain physiological responses of participants to an immersive virtual simulation of an urban environment. The analysis of differences in participant responses at various stages of the experiment (baseline recordings, training, first half and second half of the urban simulation) are examined in detail. It was found that participants typically show a stress response during the training phase and a stress response towards the end of the simulation of the urban experience.There is also some evidence that variations in the level of visual realism based the texture strategy used was associated with changes in mental stress.

This paper presents an experiment designed to investigate the impact of visual and behavioral realism in avatars on perceived quality of communication in an immersive virtual environment. Participants were paired by gender and were randomly assigned to a CAVE‘-like system or a head-mounted display. Both were represented by a humanoid avatar in the shared 3D environment. The visual appearance of the avatars was either basic and genderless (like a "match-stick" figure), or more photorealistic and gender-specific. Similarly, eye gaze behavior was either random or inferred from voice, to reflect different levels of behavioral realism. Our comparative analysis of 48 post-experiment questionnaires confirms earlier findings from non-immersive studies using semi-photorealistic avatars, where inferred gaze significantly outperformed random gaze. However responses to the lower-realism avatar are adversely affected by inferred gaze, revealing a significant interaction effect between appearance and behavior. We discuss the importance of aligning visual and behavioral realism for increased avatar effectiveness.