This research investigates how experiencing virtual embodiment in a wheelchair affects implicit bias towards people who use wheelchairs. We also investigate how receiving information from a virtual instructor who uses a wheelchair affects implicit bias towards people who use wheelchairs. Implicit biases are actions or judgments of people towards various concepts or stereotypes (e.g., races). We hypothesized that experiencing a Disability Simulation (DS) through an avatar in a wheelchair and receiving information from an instructor with a disability will have a significant effect on participants' ability to recall disability-related information and will reduce implicit biases towards people who use wheelchairs. To investigate this hypothesis, a 2x2 between-subjects user study was conducted where participants experienced an immersive VR DS that presents information about Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with factors of instructor (i.e., instructor with a disability versus instructor without a disability) and locomotion interface (i.e., without a disability - locomotion through in-place-walking, with a disability - locomotion in a wheelchair). Participants took a disability-focused Implicit Association Test two times, once before and once after experiencing the DS. They also took a test of knowledge retention about MS. The primary result is: experiencing the DS through locomotion in a wheelchair was better for both the disability-related information recall task and reducing implicit bias towards people who use wheelchairs.

This article investigates how experiencing Virtual Reality (VR) Disability Simulation (DS) affects information recall and participants' implicit association towards people with disabilities (PwD). Implicit attitudes are our actions or judgments towards various concepts or stereotypes (e.g., race) which we may or may not be aware of. Previous research has shown that experiencing ownership over a dark-skinned body reduces implicit racial bias. We hypothesized that a DS with a tracked Head Mounted Display (HMD) and a wheelchair interface would have a significantly larger effect on participants' information recall and their implicit association towards PwD than a desktop monitor and gamepad. We conducted a 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment in which participants experienced a VR DS that teaches them facts about Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with factors of display (HMD, a desktop monitor) and interface (gamepad, wheelchair). Participants took two Implicit Association Tests before and after experiencing the DS. Our study results show that the participants in an immersive HMD condition performed better than the participants in the non-immersive Desktop condition in their information recall task. Moreover, a tracked HMD and a wheelchair interface had significantly larger effects on participants' implicit association towards PwD than a desktop monitor and a gamepad.

Disability Simulation (DS) is an approach used to modify attitudes regarding people with disabilities (PwD). DS places people without disabilities (PwoD) in situations that are designed for the users to experience a disability. The focus of my PhD dissertation is to transform the concept of disability simulation into reverse disability simulation (RDS) in a virtual reality (VR) environment. In a RDS people with disabilities perform tasks that are made easier in the virtual environment compared to the real world. In a sense, RDS is the “ability” simulation for people with disability. Despite the fact that DS is being used to raise awareness, it also endured some criticism for not being effective. Our first and second study put the criticism into the test, and found out that DS, in fact, can be used as a tools to teach PwoD about facts regarding disability. This result encouraged us to think deeper and invent ideas how to use same concept of DS for PwD. In my third user study, we hypothesized that putting Pw D in a RDS will increase confidence and enable efficient task completion. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted a within-subjects experiment in which participants performed a virtual “kicking a ball” task in two different conditions: a normal condition without RDS (i.e., same difficulty as in the real world) and an easy condition with RDS (i.e., physically easier than the real world but visually the same). The results from our study suggest that RDS increased participants' confidence. The outcome of our finding has the potential to be used in VR rehabilitation for PwD.

Disability Simulation (DS) is an approach used to modify attitudes regarding people with disabilities. DS places people without disabilities in situations that are designed for the users to experience a disability. In this research we investigate reverse disability simulation (RDS) in a virtual reality environment. In a RDS people with disabilities perform tasks that are made easier in the virtual environment compared to the real world. We hypothesized that putting people with disabilities in a RDS will increase confidence and enable efficient task completion. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted a within-subjects experiment in which participants performed a virtual “kicking a ball” task in two different conditions: a normal condition without RDS (i.e., same difficulty as in the real world) and an easy condition with RDS (i.e., physically easier than the real world but visually the same). The results from our study suggest that RDS increased participants' confidence.

The objective of this study is to investigate how different visual components of Virtual Reality (VR), such as field of view, frame rate, and display resolution affect postural stability in VR. Although previous studies identified these visual components as some of the primary factors that differ significantly in VR from reality, the effect of each component on postural stability in VR is yet unknown. While most people experience postural instability in VR, it is worse for people with balance impairments (BIs). This is likely because they depend more on their visual cues to maintain postural stability. Therefore, we conducted a within-subject study with ten people with balance impairments due to Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In each condition, we varied one component and kept all other components fixed. Each participant explored the virtual environment (VE) in a controlled fashion to make sure that the effect of the visual components was consistent for all participants. Results from our study suggest that decreased field of view and frame rate have significant effects on postural stability, but the effect of display resolution is inconclusive. Therefore, VR systems targeting people with balance impairments should focus on improving field of view and frame rate rather than display resolution.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a concept called virtual ability simulation (VAS) for people with disability in a virtual reality (VR) environment. In a VAS people with disabilities perform tasks that are made easier in the virtual environment (VE) compared to the real world. We hypothesized that putting people with disabilities in a VAS will increase confidence and enable more efficient task completion than without a VAS. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted a within-subjects experiment in which participants performed a virtual task called "kick the ball" in two different conditions: a no gain condition (i.e., same difficulty as in the real world) and a rotational gain condition (i.e., physically easier than the real world but visually the same). The results from our study suggest that VAS increased participants' confidence which in turn enables them to perceive the difficulty of the same task easier.

The objective of this study is to investigate how different visual components of Virtual Reality (VR), such as field of view, frame rate, and display resolution affect postural stability in VR. Although previous studies identified these visual components as some of the primary factors that differ significantly in VR from reality, the effect of each component on postural stability is yet unknown. While most people experience postural instability in VR, it is worse for people with balance impairments (BIs). This may be because they depend more on their visual cues to maintain postural stability. We conducted a study with ten people with balance impairments due to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and seven people without balance impairments to investigate the effect of different visual components on postural stability. In each condition, we varied one of the visual components and kept all other components fixed. Each participant explored the virtual environment (VE) in a controlled fashion to make sure that the effect of the visual components was consistent for all participants. Results from our study suggest that for people with BIs, decreased field of view and decreased frame rate have significant negative effects on postural stability, but the effect of display resolution is inconclusive. However, for people without BIs, there were no significant differences for any of the visual components. Therefore, VR systems targeting people with balance impairments should focus on improving field of view and frame rate before improving display resolution.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the sense of presence on one aspect of learning, information recall, in an immersive virtual reality (VR) disability simulation. Previous research has shown that the use of VR technology in education may facilitate improved learning outcomes, however, it is still an active research topic as the learning outcomes can vary widely. We hypothesized that a higher level of immersion and involvement in a VR disability simulation that leads to a high sense of presence will help the user improve information recall. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted a between subjects experiment in which participants were presented information about multiple sclerosis in different immersive conditions and afterwards they attempted to recall the information. We also looked into whether there is any adverse effect of cybersickness on the information recall task in our disability simulation. The results from our study suggest that participants who were in immersive conditions were able to recall the information more effectively than the participants who experienced a non-immersive condition.