Search

The findings of media comparison studies examining the efficacy of using immersive virtual reality (IVR) in education have been inconclusive. Some studies have suggested that immersive virtual environments (IVE) facilitate learning; other studies have reported similar or even lower learning effects in IVR than in more traditional educational settings. To expand upon earlier research, the present study combined a media comparison approach with an exploration of how learner characteristics might influence the impact of IVR. In the experiment, 262 students from two distinct types of lower secondary schools—elementary school, which is a type of comprehensive school, and multi-year gymnasium, which is a selective academic school—received a lesson on topography and contour line interpretation using either an IVE or a PowerPoint (PPT) slideshow. To measure the extent to which the students were able to apply the lesson knowledge when working with maps, a transfer test was conducted before the lesson, immediately after its completion, and again one month later. Along with the transfer test, a spatial reasoning test was administered to the students. The results showed that while the type of school had an impact on student learning gains, there was no clear benefit of IVR-based instruction over PPT instruction. More specifically, the multi-year gymnasium students had higher scores than the elementary school students already in the pre-test, and they also demonstrated higher learning gains. Conversely, the elementary school students did not show any statistical improvement in their learning outcomes, regardless of the learning environment. The present study is in line with the recommendation formulated by Buchner and Kerres (2023) for comparative research on augmented reality in education—to move research from the phase of examining whether IVR learning works to the phase of examining the questions of when and how IVR learning works. We argue that examining the influence of learner characteristics and variables describing their academic background is crucial for comprehending the potential of IVR as a teaching tool.

The study evaluated the degree of comparability of human behaviour exhibited during an evacuation scenario conducted in two environments, one real and the other virtual. For this purpose, we created a precise 3D model (digital twin) of a real campus building. In both the experimental (virtual environment) and control (real environment) groups, the participants were all first-time visitors to the building. The groups were instructed to locate a target room where they would subsequently be required to complete a simple task, at which point an evacuation alarm would be set off. We evaluated three types of data collected during their quest to find a way out of the building: an eye-tracker logged gaze hits on various objects (e.g., navigation signs), recorded the locomotion and trajectory of the participants, and logged a combination of these parameters (e.g., points along the path where participants sighted certain objects). The sample was composed of 73 participants (35 for the real environment, 38 for the virtual environment). We analysed and confirmed the results and concluded that despite certain aspects of human behaviour differing during the simulated evacuation, the locomotion behaviour exhibited by the participants in both environments was generally comparable. To improve the potential use of these findings in practice, we selected easily accessible hardware and excluded expensive devices such as treadmills, etc.

The concept responds to insufficient support for developing geoinformation skills in Czech lower and upper secondary schools. It aims to create an interconnected system for developing geoinformation skills in teaching at lower and upper secondary schools, emphasising the implementation of GIS tools and proposing principles for the development of geoinformation skills in teaching. For this purpose, a matrix of learning tasks is created, arranged according to individual geoinformation skills – reading, selection, use, creation and sharing. The concept is intended mainly for pre-service and in-service geography teachers at lower and upper secondary schools, authors of school educational programs or teachers in non-formal education. The concept, including learning tasks and other materials, is available online at https://gitdoskol.ped.muni.cz.

Navigation in a complex indoor environment can be difficult, and pedestrians may find themselves disoriented. As the featured objects of an environment, indoor landmarks play an important role in navigation. A review of the existing literature in outdoor landmark evaluation methods, however, shows that they cannot be fully applicable in any indoor environment. In this paper, an instance-based scoring system is proposed for analyzing the indicators that influence the salience of spatial objects from visual, semantic and structural aspects. An Analytic Hierarchy Process was applied to calculate landmark weights using these indicators. Two types of indoor scenes were employed as instances to verify the validity of this method, the Dongchenghui shopping mall (Nanjing, China) using a subjective questionnaire and interview method, and the headquarters of Masaryk University (Brno, Czechia) using an objective eyetracking method. Be result of the two instances showed that the proposed method was feasible.

An increasing number of population brings increasing vulnerability of the society to different disasters and emergencies. The maps provide spatial information, which is useful on different levels of decision making during emergencies from strategic planning to single person decision making. To fit the user needs maps can be optimized for a particular user, user group, available technology or external conditions.Evacuation is a crucial part of the process dealing with most of the emergencies. In case of building the standard ISO 23601:2009, Safety identification – Escape and evacuation plan signs was developed to provide the guidelines for the design, materials, installation and other attributes of the evacuation plans. It is mostly based on the ISO 7010:2003, Graphical symbols – Safety colours and safety signs – Safety signs that are widely used in the buildings all around the world. The symbols were designed with the purpose to attract user attention under any circumstances and across the different cultural background. It can be a disadvantage in case of cartographic visualization, while the symbols on the map are not easy to identify the anchor point, increase the graphics clutter of the map (see figure 1).In our research, we have decided to focus on the evaluation of user’s abilities to use and understand of designed evacuation signs and plans. As the standard is intended to be used worldwide, we have designed study focused on the comparison of the understanding to the meaning of evacuation symbols in general and also in the form of cartographic visualization. We have designed the user study performed in the first step in Nanjing (China) and in Brno (Czech Republic) in order to verify the cross-cultural universality of evacuation symbols. There were about seventy participants in China and seventy participants in the Czech Republic, who performed similar tasks. The tasks consist of separate symbol meaning selection, a separate symbol meaning estimation, identification of a particular symbol on the map and basic interpretation of the map content. The original and modified map signs were used as stimuli in case of cartographic visualization. Results were statistically processed and discussed. The results bring a new perspective on the standardized cartographic visualization for purposes of building evacuation.

Landmarks play an important role in navigation especially when people in the familiar and unfamiliar environment. These landmarks are usually used for expressing their spatial knowledge. This prior knowledge is related to the spatial familiarity that the spatial knowledge is acquired by individuals as a function of their experience in the environment (Gale et al., 1990). Individuals prefers to take into highly account their familiar route within the environment. Furthermore, the route descriptions include the differed types of landmarks in familiar/unfamiliar routes (Lovelace et al., 1999). The user’s level of spatial familiarity for people is a key factor of how they navigate in the environment (Savage et al., 2012). In human navigation or wayfinding, the dependency on familiar landmarks is the highest priority (Golledge, 2003).Landmarks are more distinguishably salient and prominent than the another spatial features (Sorrows and Hirtle, 1999). Therefore, the landmark salience refers to how easily this prominent spatial feature can be regarded as a landmark (Raubal and Winter, 2002). The landmark salience mainly divided into visual, structural (important location), and cognitive (semantic). Visual salience refers to the visual characteristics of spatial features such as color contrast with surroundings. Some visual characteristics include facade areas, shapes, colors and other properties. Semantic salience refers to the spatial knowledge related features such as a cultural importance of building. Structural salience refers to the spatial features play an important role in the structure of the spatial environment.The level of spatial knowledge of the individual also an important factor in landmark selection (Nuhn and Timpf, 2018). Hamburger and Röser (2014) investigated landmark semantics and showed that famous buildings were better recognized than unfamiliar ones. Quesnot and Roche (2015) found that the familiar individuals prefer the semantic landmarks in environment while the unfamiliar individuals prefer the landmark with the prominent visual and structural. In contrast, people unfamiliar with an environment prefer landmarks with outstanding visual and structural characteristics.The existing literature studies the method that landmark indicators to be considered are not comprehensive while can’t reflect on the landmark characteristics. The reason is that the method of calculation and extraction for landmarks can’t conform the individual preference needs of navigation. Compared with the traditional subjective evaluation method, the eye-tracking method provide objectivity and reliability. For example, a mobile eye tracking system was used by Kiefer et al. (2014) to investigate the process of self-localization. They discovered that test persons directed their attention longer on landmarks on the map and aligned them with objects in the surroundings during successful localization of their own position. Schwarzkopf et al. (2013) used fixed and mobile eye tracking devices to study that participates selected the navigation landmarks in the virtual environment and the real-world of the airport. In general, there are an only limited number of works related to the influence of spatial familiarity on landmark by using eye tracking method.At present, many navigation systems are providing users with route directions under different travel modes. These navigation systems have the "distance-to-turn" method in route directions, however the landmark knowledge has not been conformed to user's habits and spatial cognitive in wayfinding. In order to solve these problems, this paper aims to study the characteristics of the user’s spatial familiarity and landmark salience evaluation method in navigation. The following questions are addressed in this study: 1) What’s the relationship between the spatial familiarity with the landmark selection in navigation for individuals? 2) What is the quantitative evaluation model to connect between the spatial familiarity with the landmark salience by using the eye-tracking data?In our experiments, we will use eye tracking to explore the influence of spatial familiarity on landmark salience. The experimental path is part of the campus area of Nanjing Normal University. The subjects are divided into novice students and senior students from Nanjing Normal University as unfamiliar and familiar groups respectively. The procedures are divided into two parts, namely, the subjects should walk the experimental path within the fixation time and then they are asked to wear VR eye tracking module a Glass DK II special for HTC view (China; https://www.7invensun.com/) to do three types of tasks about landmark picture with the characteristics of visual, semantic and structural. With this research, we expect to establish a landmark salience evaluation method through eye movement data and analyse the landmark selection rules of groups with different spatial familiarity. It is helpful to design the pedestrian navigation system based on landmarks, improve the pertinence and reliability of navigation services and reduce the cognitive load for users.