Robert Stone | University of Birmingham (original) (raw)
Papers by Robert Stone
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2006
This special issue completes the set of papers that were first presented at the 8th Annual Intern... more This special issue completes the set of papers that were first presented at the 8th Annual International Workshop on Presence: PRESENCE 2005 held at University College London (UK), September 21–23, 2005. The first papers from this conference were introduced in Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15(4). Four of the papers could be viewed together since they stem from a recently completed European Project PRESENCIA in which all the authors participated. The paper by Friedman et al., in the Forum section, describes a large scale experimental study of presence and a multi-level approach to the analysis of the resulting experimental data. They argue that presence-related data may usefully be shared and made available in standardized form, and that this would further the emergence of a scientific study of presence. Specific aspects of that same experiment are also considered in the paper by Slater et al. in this issue (not part of the Special Issue). The paper by Brotons-Mas et al. discusses the role of place-cell neurons in the integration and processing of spatial information and the generation of spatial presence. Their paper demonstrates the deep insight that can be attained by considering the concept of presence from a neuroscience point of view; in particular it helps to explain some well-known results in navigation in VEs. The paper by Leeb et al. essentially applies neuroscience to the achievement of a new kind of interface within virtual environments: moving through a VE by thought. Participants can think of moving their feet and automatically move forward within a VE, or think of their hand and stop—through the exploitation of braincomputer interface technology. Although such research still has a long way to go before it becomes practically useable in the everyday sense, this paper describes results that can be achieved today, and the research field has useful applications in the world of disability. The paper by Hecht et al. examines the issue of multimodality in the context of response times rather than presence directly. They describe an experiment that demonstrates that the greater number of modalities (visual, auditory, and haptic) that are combined in the display of virtual information, the faster the response time of participants within a particular experimental framework. They argue that this could be used as the basis for understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind greater presence being associated with greater multimodality. The remaining two papers deal in different ways with subjectivity of experience in virtual reality. Parés and Parés argue that there must be a model of subjective experience that designers of virtual environment systems can exploit, and they go on to present such a model. Their argument is an important one—since it is clear that there needs to be a virtual reality equivalent of the famous model-view-controller paradigm that came out of the Smalltalk approach to object oriented programming in the late 1980s. Finally, Herrera et al. discuss the relationship between the concepts of agency and presence. They take autism as a particular example of a type of participant within a VE who cannot act “as if” the experience were true, but who rather experience agency—as a relationship between themselves and their environment. Each of these last two papers in the Special Issue presents new viewpoints about virtual environments and presence, and we hope that these will stimulate further debate and further research.
Information Services & Use, 1991
![Research paper thumbnail of A review of: “Force Limits in Manual Work”. Prepared by The Materials Handling Research Unit, University of Surrey. (IPC Science and Technology Press, 1980.) [Pp.32.] £7-50](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/111343911/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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The author reports on the virtual environment remote driving experiment (VERDEX) project carried ... more The author reports on the virtual environment remote driving experiment (VERDEX) project carried out at the Advanced Robotics Research Centre. The aim of the project was to develop an experimental test bed for human factors evaluations of virtual reality and telepresence technologies and to study the impact of new human-computer interface and telepresence technologies on the performance of the human operator in control of a remote robotic system. >
PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance. Fully formatted PDF and full text ... more PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance. Fully formatted PDF and full text (HTML) versions will be made available soon. Can virtual nature improve patient experiences and memories of dental treatment? A study protocol for a randomized controlled trial Trials 2014, 15:90 doi:10.1186/1745-6215-15-90
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2006
The fusion of Virtual Reality and Artificial Life technologies has opened up a valuable and effec... more The fusion of Virtual Reality and Artificial Life technologies has opened up a valuable and effective technique for research in the field of dynamic archaeological reconstruction. This paper describes early evaluations of simulated vegetation and environmental models using decentralized Artificial Life entities. The results demonstrate a strong feasibility for the application of integrated VR and Artificial Life in solving a 10,000 year old mystery shrouding a submerged landscape in the Southern North Sea, off the east coast of the United Kingdom. Three experimental scenarios with dynamic, “artificial” vegetation are observed to grow, reproduce, and react to virtual environmental parameters in a way that mimics their physical counterparts. Through further experimentation and refinement of the Artificial Life rules, plus the integration of additional knowledge from subject matter experts in related scientific fields, a credible reconstruction of the ancient and, today, inaccessible l...
International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 2012
Previous restorative environment (RE) research suggests that exposure of individuals to natural s... more Previous restorative environment (RE) research suggests that exposure of individuals to natural settings can reduce stress, improve feelings of well-being, and help individuals to recover from fatigue following intensive mental activities. This paper focuses on possible future opportunities for exploring Virtual Environments (VE) in the pursuit of restorative and rehabilitative therapies. The paper presents early work in developing such a Virtual Restorative Environment (VRE) and includes results from two preliminary studies. The first study compared two VEs (an urban city scene and a rural coastal scene) and showed the effect of ambient sounds on ratings of anxiety and relaxation. The second study explored the opportunity of incorporating odours into a VE using a novel olfactory display system and evaluated methods for measuring their effect on the user. Throughout, the paper discusses human factors and usability issues for VRE technologies and future research opportunities.
Detecting emotional responses in multimedia environments is an academically and technologically c... more Detecting emotional responses in multimedia environments is an academically and technologically challenging research issue. In the domain of Affective Computing, from non-interactive and static stimuli (e.g. affective image) to highly interactive and dynamic environments (affective virtual realities), researchers have employed a wide range of affective stimuli to measure and interpret human psychological and physiological emotional behaviours. Various psychophysiological parameters (e.g. Electroencephalography, Galvanic Skin Response, Heart Rate, etc.) have been employed and investigated, in order to detect and quantify human affective states. In this paper, we present a detailed literature review of over 33 affective computing studies, undertaken since 1993. All aspects of these studies (stimuli type, pre-processing, windowing, features, classification technique, etc.) have been reported in detail. We believe that this paper not only summarises the breadth of research over the past...
Over the past decade, the commercial and industrial Virtual Environment (VE) or Virtual Reality (... more Over the past decade, the commercial and industrial Virtual Environment (VE) or Virtual Reality (VR) developer community has experienced many problems as a result of the outrageous claims of the early proponents of “immersive” technologies and the dominance of graphics supercomputer companies. Today, the very fact that a commercial, off-the-shelf personal computer, equipped with a low-cost graphics accelerator can out-perform some of its supercomputer “competitors” – at a fraction of the cost it takes to maintain those competitors – has rekindled interest in those commercial and industrial organisations who were once potential adopters of VR for competitive advantage. This paper is a personal reflection on some of the industrial trials and tribulations of the past few years of VR/VE developments and a constructive critique on present academic and commercial research and development trends.
After three decades of “technology push”, Human Factors design techniques and processes are final... more After three decades of “technology push”, Human Factors design techniques and processes are finally being applied to applications of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR, AR) in such sectors as defence, engineering, transportation, medicine and scientific visualisation. However, the importance of Human Factors, or human-centred design, is yet to impact significantly on the Virtual Heritage sector, especially given the recent emergence of new VR and AR technologies, where a preoccupation with unproven and often unreliable examples of “immersive” technologies is already resulting in costly, unusable “interactive” systems. This is unsatisfactory, especially as Virtual Heritage must, out of necessity, engage with individuals from all walks of life, especially those who possess valuable personal recollections or material resources. Furthermore, these are also individuals whose knowledge, skills and abilities must be taken into account from the outset, as these factors are of fundame...
All recipients of this report are advised that it must not be copied in whole or in part or be gi... more All recipients of this report are advised that it must not be copied in whole or in part or be given further distribution outside the authority without the written permission of the Research Director (Human Capability).
Haptic Human-Computer Interaction
IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Sensor Review
Looks at changes in the human‐computer interface, particularly in the field of using computers fo... more Looks at changes in the human‐computer interface, particularly in the field of using computers for applications which require an accurate registration from an input device in “six degrees of freedom”, including robotics, CAD, anthropometric/biomechanic analysis, military, digital antique cataloguing and archaeological site surveys.
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Defence Technology, 2016
Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rights Unless a licence is specified... more Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. • Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. • Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. • User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of 'fair dealing' under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) • Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain. Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Since the advent of highly capable uninhabited vehicles, notably in the application domains of of... more Since the advent of highly capable uninhabited vehicles, notably in the application domains of offshore oil/gas exploration and defence, attention has increasingly focused on the development of technologies necessary to endow remote systems with complete autonomy. However, this approach has not met with widespread success. Operational experiences frequently point to the fact that the human operator still has a significant role to play in the future of uninhabited vehicles, as part of a control continuum that ranges from direct teleoperation during critical mission phases and recovery modes of control to the high-level supervision of single or multiple platforms. However, few (if any) usable guidelines and/or affordable experimental test beds exist to help ensure that human factors issues are adopted early in the design lifecycle of uninhabited systems. To help redress this situation, research under way within the University of Birmingham and the UK's Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre has resulted in the development of an experimental Synthetic Environments technology demonstrator test bed, codenamed Alchemy. The test bed is designed to support the generation of new human factors knowledge relating (initially) to operator display and control requirements for uninhabited vehicles, such as iSTAR UAVs (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition & Reconnaissance Uninhabited Air Vehicles), deployed in support of homeland security operations or urban combat. The test bed has evolved from an early PC demonstrator, exploiting the Microsoft DirectX Application Programming Interface and .NET framework, to one that now exploits the power, quality and support of software tools emerging from the serious gaming community. This evolution is also helping to support the exploitation of serious games technologies in other defence applications, from close-range weapons training to military surgery.
Internet, Multimedia Systems and Applications, EuroIMSA, 2005
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2006
This special issue completes the set of papers that were first presented at the 8th Annual Intern... more This special issue completes the set of papers that were first presented at the 8th Annual International Workshop on Presence: PRESENCE 2005 held at University College London (UK), September 21–23, 2005. The first papers from this conference were introduced in Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 15(4). Four of the papers could be viewed together since they stem from a recently completed European Project PRESENCIA in which all the authors participated. The paper by Friedman et al., in the Forum section, describes a large scale experimental study of presence and a multi-level approach to the analysis of the resulting experimental data. They argue that presence-related data may usefully be shared and made available in standardized form, and that this would further the emergence of a scientific study of presence. Specific aspects of that same experiment are also considered in the paper by Slater et al. in this issue (not part of the Special Issue). The paper by Brotons-Mas et al. discusses the role of place-cell neurons in the integration and processing of spatial information and the generation of spatial presence. Their paper demonstrates the deep insight that can be attained by considering the concept of presence from a neuroscience point of view; in particular it helps to explain some well-known results in navigation in VEs. The paper by Leeb et al. essentially applies neuroscience to the achievement of a new kind of interface within virtual environments: moving through a VE by thought. Participants can think of moving their feet and automatically move forward within a VE, or think of their hand and stop—through the exploitation of braincomputer interface technology. Although such research still has a long way to go before it becomes practically useable in the everyday sense, this paper describes results that can be achieved today, and the research field has useful applications in the world of disability. The paper by Hecht et al. examines the issue of multimodality in the context of response times rather than presence directly. They describe an experiment that demonstrates that the greater number of modalities (visual, auditory, and haptic) that are combined in the display of virtual information, the faster the response time of participants within a particular experimental framework. They argue that this could be used as the basis for understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind greater presence being associated with greater multimodality. The remaining two papers deal in different ways with subjectivity of experience in virtual reality. Parés and Parés argue that there must be a model of subjective experience that designers of virtual environment systems can exploit, and they go on to present such a model. Their argument is an important one—since it is clear that there needs to be a virtual reality equivalent of the famous model-view-controller paradigm that came out of the Smalltalk approach to object oriented programming in the late 1980s. Finally, Herrera et al. discuss the relationship between the concepts of agency and presence. They take autism as a particular example of a type of participant within a VE who cannot act “as if” the experience were true, but who rather experience agency—as a relationship between themselves and their environment. Each of these last two papers in the Special Issue presents new viewpoints about virtual environments and presence, and we hope that these will stimulate further debate and further research.
Information Services & Use, 1991
The author reports on the virtual environment remote driving experiment (VERDEX) project carried ... more The author reports on the virtual environment remote driving experiment (VERDEX) project carried out at the Advanced Robotics Research Centre. The aim of the project was to develop an experimental test bed for human factors evaluations of virtual reality and telepresence technologies and to study the impact of new human-computer interface and telepresence technologies on the performance of the human operator in control of a remote robotic system. >
PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance. Fully formatted PDF and full text ... more PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance. Fully formatted PDF and full text (HTML) versions will be made available soon. Can virtual nature improve patient experiences and memories of dental treatment? A study protocol for a randomized controlled trial Trials 2014, 15:90 doi:10.1186/1745-6215-15-90
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2006
The fusion of Virtual Reality and Artificial Life technologies has opened up a valuable and effec... more The fusion of Virtual Reality and Artificial Life technologies has opened up a valuable and effective technique for research in the field of dynamic archaeological reconstruction. This paper describes early evaluations of simulated vegetation and environmental models using decentralized Artificial Life entities. The results demonstrate a strong feasibility for the application of integrated VR and Artificial Life in solving a 10,000 year old mystery shrouding a submerged landscape in the Southern North Sea, off the east coast of the United Kingdom. Three experimental scenarios with dynamic, “artificial” vegetation are observed to grow, reproduce, and react to virtual environmental parameters in a way that mimics their physical counterparts. Through further experimentation and refinement of the Artificial Life rules, plus the integration of additional knowledge from subject matter experts in related scientific fields, a credible reconstruction of the ancient and, today, inaccessible l...
International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 2012
Previous restorative environment (RE) research suggests that exposure of individuals to natural s... more Previous restorative environment (RE) research suggests that exposure of individuals to natural settings can reduce stress, improve feelings of well-being, and help individuals to recover from fatigue following intensive mental activities. This paper focuses on possible future opportunities for exploring Virtual Environments (VE) in the pursuit of restorative and rehabilitative therapies. The paper presents early work in developing such a Virtual Restorative Environment (VRE) and includes results from two preliminary studies. The first study compared two VEs (an urban city scene and a rural coastal scene) and showed the effect of ambient sounds on ratings of anxiety and relaxation. The second study explored the opportunity of incorporating odours into a VE using a novel olfactory display system and evaluated methods for measuring their effect on the user. Throughout, the paper discusses human factors and usability issues for VRE technologies and future research opportunities.
Detecting emotional responses in multimedia environments is an academically and technologically c... more Detecting emotional responses in multimedia environments is an academically and technologically challenging research issue. In the domain of Affective Computing, from non-interactive and static stimuli (e.g. affective image) to highly interactive and dynamic environments (affective virtual realities), researchers have employed a wide range of affective stimuli to measure and interpret human psychological and physiological emotional behaviours. Various psychophysiological parameters (e.g. Electroencephalography, Galvanic Skin Response, Heart Rate, etc.) have been employed and investigated, in order to detect and quantify human affective states. In this paper, we present a detailed literature review of over 33 affective computing studies, undertaken since 1993. All aspects of these studies (stimuli type, pre-processing, windowing, features, classification technique, etc.) have been reported in detail. We believe that this paper not only summarises the breadth of research over the past...
Over the past decade, the commercial and industrial Virtual Environment (VE) or Virtual Reality (... more Over the past decade, the commercial and industrial Virtual Environment (VE) or Virtual Reality (VR) developer community has experienced many problems as a result of the outrageous claims of the early proponents of “immersive” technologies and the dominance of graphics supercomputer companies. Today, the very fact that a commercial, off-the-shelf personal computer, equipped with a low-cost graphics accelerator can out-perform some of its supercomputer “competitors” – at a fraction of the cost it takes to maintain those competitors – has rekindled interest in those commercial and industrial organisations who were once potential adopters of VR for competitive advantage. This paper is a personal reflection on some of the industrial trials and tribulations of the past few years of VR/VE developments and a constructive critique on present academic and commercial research and development trends.
After three decades of “technology push”, Human Factors design techniques and processes are final... more After three decades of “technology push”, Human Factors design techniques and processes are finally being applied to applications of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR, AR) in such sectors as defence, engineering, transportation, medicine and scientific visualisation. However, the importance of Human Factors, or human-centred design, is yet to impact significantly on the Virtual Heritage sector, especially given the recent emergence of new VR and AR technologies, where a preoccupation with unproven and often unreliable examples of “immersive” technologies is already resulting in costly, unusable “interactive” systems. This is unsatisfactory, especially as Virtual Heritage must, out of necessity, engage with individuals from all walks of life, especially those who possess valuable personal recollections or material resources. Furthermore, these are also individuals whose knowledge, skills and abilities must be taken into account from the outset, as these factors are of fundame...
All recipients of this report are advised that it must not be copied in whole or in part or be gi... more All recipients of this report are advised that it must not be copied in whole or in part or be given further distribution outside the authority without the written permission of the Research Director (Human Capability).
Haptic Human-Computer Interaction
IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Sensor Review
Looks at changes in the human‐computer interface, particularly in the field of using computers fo... more Looks at changes in the human‐computer interface, particularly in the field of using computers for applications which require an accurate registration from an input device in “six degrees of freedom”, including robotics, CAD, anthropometric/biomechanic analysis, military, digital antique cataloguing and archaeological site surveys.
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Defence Technology, 2016
Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rights Unless a licence is specified... more Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. • Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. • Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. • User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of 'fair dealing' under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) • Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain. Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Since the advent of highly capable uninhabited vehicles, notably in the application domains of of... more Since the advent of highly capable uninhabited vehicles, notably in the application domains of offshore oil/gas exploration and defence, attention has increasingly focused on the development of technologies necessary to endow remote systems with complete autonomy. However, this approach has not met with widespread success. Operational experiences frequently point to the fact that the human operator still has a significant role to play in the future of uninhabited vehicles, as part of a control continuum that ranges from direct teleoperation during critical mission phases and recovery modes of control to the high-level supervision of single or multiple platforms. However, few (if any) usable guidelines and/or affordable experimental test beds exist to help ensure that human factors issues are adopted early in the design lifecycle of uninhabited systems. To help redress this situation, research under way within the University of Birmingham and the UK's Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre has resulted in the development of an experimental Synthetic Environments technology demonstrator test bed, codenamed Alchemy. The test bed is designed to support the generation of new human factors knowledge relating (initially) to operator display and control requirements for uninhabited vehicles, such as iSTAR UAVs (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition & Reconnaissance Uninhabited Air Vehicles), deployed in support of homeland security operations or urban combat. The test bed has evolved from an early PC demonstrator, exploiting the Microsoft DirectX Application Programming Interface and .NET framework, to one that now exploits the power, quality and support of software tools emerging from the serious gaming community. This evolution is also helping to support the exploitation of serious games technologies in other defence applications, from close-range weapons training to military surgery.
Internet, Multimedia Systems and Applications, EuroIMSA, 2005
Internet and Multimedia Systems …, Jan 1, 2005
Virtual Reality is gaining momentum and widespread popularity in the field of archaeology in orde... more Virtual Reality is gaining momentum and widespread popularity in the field of archaeology in order to support research, education, preservation and reconstruction of sites and objects of cultural, heritage and religious significance. The recent emergence of the Virtual Heritage Network has also promoted the use of VR and associated multimedia technologies in the field of natural and cultural heritage. In view of this, a framework is being constructed to assist archaeologists in the visualization, simulation and exploration of ancient landscapes that are otherwise inaccessible. This paper presents the early results of a 3D reconstruction of a true Mesolithic landscape in the years 10,000 -7,000 B.P., based on real geo-seismic datasets gathered from the North Sea, structured according to a new, proposed framework for visualization and simulation in cultural heritage.
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, Jan 1, 2006
The fusion of Virtual Reality and Artificial Life technologies has opened up a valuable and effec... more The fusion of Virtual Reality and Artificial Life technologies has opened up a valuable and effective technique for research in the field of dynamic archaeological reconstruction. This paper describes early evaluations of simulated vegetation and environmental models using decentralized Artificial Life entities. The results demonstrate a strong feasibility for the application of integrated VR and Artificial Life in solving a 10,000 year old mystery shrouding a submerged landscape in the Southern North Sea, off the east coast of the United Kingdom. Three experimental scenarios with dynamic, "artificial" vegetation are observed to grow, reproduce and react to virtual environmental parameters in a way that mimics their physical counterparts. Through further experimentation and refinement of the Artificial Life rules, plus the integration of additional knowledge from subject matter experts in related scientific fields, a credible reconstruction of the ancient and, today, inaccessible landscape may be within our reach.