pejman sajjadi | Pennsylvania State University (original) (raw)

Papers by pejman sajjadi

Frontiers in computer science, May 4, 2023

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Nov 14, 2022

Frontiers in Nutrition, Jul 19, 2023

Introduction: The modern eating environment has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity... more Introduction: The modern eating environment has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity epidemic. Mixed reality applications may improve traditional methodological assessments of eating behavior by improving the ecological validity of the laboratory setting. Methods: Research experts evaluated the utility and ecological validity of a mixed reality application that allowed immersion within virtual environments through utilizing the passthrough cameras of the head mounted display to view and interact with real foods. An initial evaluation was conducted that involved three virtual environments: a traditional laboratory booth, a non-textured restaurant, and a full-textured restaurant. The feedback from the initial evaluation was used to create a new virtual restaurant environment and a subsequent evaluation was conducted. Results: Nearly all research experts suggested adding social cues such as people and background noise to create a more authentic and ecologically valid experience. The experts scored the new virtual restaurant environment to be more acceptable than eating or conducting research in a sensory booth but scored lower when compared to conducting research in a real-world restaurant setting. Discussion: The results of this evaluation suggest that mixed reality applications may be a new methodology to assess environmental influences of eating behavior and may be a promising direction for eating behavior and sensory science research.

Journal of Biological Education

Frontiers in Computer Science

While different crowdsourcing platforms promote remote data collection, experiments in the immers... more While different crowdsourcing platforms promote remote data collection, experiments in the immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) research community are predominantly performed in person. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has forced researchers in different disciplines, including iVR, to seriously consider remote studies. In this paper, we present a remote study using the Immersive Virtual Alimentation and Nutrition (IVAN) application, designed to educate users about food-energy density and portion size control. We report on the results of a remote experiment with 45 users using the IVAN app. In IVAN, users actively construct knowledge about energy density by manipulating virtual food items, and explore the concept of portion size control through hypothesis testing and assembling virtual meals in iVR. To explore the feasibility of conducting remote iVR studies using an interactive health-related application for nutrition education, two conditions were devised (interactive vs. passive). The r...

Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

AGU Fall Meeting 2020, Dec 10, 2020

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2020

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019

Frontiers in Environmental Science

We evaluated whether teaching the public about the “critical zone”–the Earth’s outer skin, critic... more We evaluated whether teaching the public about the “critical zone”–the Earth’s outer skin, critical to all life—via a digital serious game can affect adults’ systems thinking about the environment and support policies to protect the environment. An experiment (N = 152) compared the effects of playing “CZ Investigator” versus viewing a static website on systems thinking about the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus and support for relevant public policies. The serious game had the strongest effects on our outcomes of interest for those participants with less past science education. For these individuals, the serious game, relative to the static website, increased perceptions of the strength of interconnections across food, energy, and water systems (p < .01) and support for policies that regulated human impacts on the environment (p < .01). Mediation analysis revealed that increases in systems thinking explain increases in policy support. This group of users also indicated that the g...

This data collected to reflect on learning experience and performance of students in an introduct... more This data collected to reflect on learning experience and performance of students in an introductory geology course when learning about earthquake events in virtual reality

2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 2020

The critical zone (CZ) plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus, yet in its entirety, ... more The critical zone (CZ) plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus, yet in its entirety, it is not well understood by society. Challenges range from imagining the invisible (from bedrock to soil) to understanding complex relations between the involved components. We have launched a transdisciplinary project driven by immersive technologies that allow for an extension of what physical reality offers society about the concept of CZ. We have developed a VR serious game that enables learners to have a concrete experience about what a CZ is, and how natural and human processes affect it.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2021

Reference frames provide structure for spatial cognition and support spatial knowledge developmen... more Reference frames provide structure for spatial cognition and support spatial knowledge development across different scales. This study sheds light on the relationship between geographic scale, defi...

2020 IEEE 8th International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH), 2020

The Critical Zone (CZ), the near surface more portion of the terrestrial Earth is a complex conce... more The Critical Zone (CZ), the near surface more portion of the terrestrial Earth is a complex concept that plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus. Due to its complexity, the concept of the CZ and its components are not well understood by society. Challenges range from imagining the invisible (the soil, rock, and water beneath us) to understanding complex relations between the involved components. To create awareness on a societal level, we have initiated a transdisciplinary project driven by immersive and gaming technologies that allow for an extension of what physical reality offers society about the concept of the CZ. We have developed a serious iVR game that enables learners to have a concrete experience about the CZ, and how natural and human processes affect it.

2020 6th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), 2020

Способи одержання сорбентів із міскантусу та дослідження їх сорбційних властивостей щодо іонів Pb... more Способи одержання сорбентів із міскантусу та дослідження їх сорбційних властивостей щодо іонів Pb(II) та Cd(II)

2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 2021

Fast-tracked by need for field trip alternatives during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Strike and Dip... more Fast-tracked by need for field trip alternatives during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Strike and Dip (SaD) tool uses structure from motion 3D models of rocks in a virtual environment to facilitate teaching students how to measure the orientation of rock faces, necessary for the completion of geologic maps. Spatial reasoning is a difficult skill to master for geology students, although a significant component of their studies involves visualising 3D structures from 2D representations, in particular, maps. More time and experience is necessary for students to practice their spatial reasoning skills, but this is a logistical challenge. The SaD tool provides an interface that resolves these logistics of practice time and field site access. Geology is often first characterised as a field science, but recent and increasing efforts to make a more inclusive environment have shown a demand to establish a comprehensive alternative to fieldwork/trips. The SaD tool is malleable, and while providing an inclusive way to teach core components, it is also capable of an array of field experiences for almost every sub-field within the geosciences. In this pilot study, introductory geoscience students were assigned a geologic mapping lab using the SaD tool. Results overall were positive in regard to the usefulness of the tool and provide us with three main directions for next steps in research and development.

Please contact the corresponding author Jiayan Zhao (zjyzjy1121@gmail.com) if you have any questi... more Please contact the corresponding author Jiayan Zhao (zjyzjy1121@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 2021

We report on the results of a study in the context of place-based immersive VR (iVR) geoscience e... more We report on the results of a study in the context of place-based immersive VR (iVR) geoscience education that compares the experiences and learning of 45 students after going through an immersive virtual field trip, using either a lower-sensing but scalable Oculus Quest or a higher-sensing but tethered HTC Vive Pro. Our results suggest that with content design considerations, standalone HMDs can be a viable replacement for high-end ones in large-scale educational studies. Furthermore, our results also suggest that the spatial ability of students can be a determining factor for their experiences and learning.

Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2021

Virtual and immersive virtual reality, VR and iVR, provide flexible and engaging learning opportu... more Virtual and immersive virtual reality, VR and iVR, provide flexible and engaging learning opportunities, such as virtual field trips (VFTs). Despite its growing popularity for education, understanding how iVR compared to non-immersive media influences learning is still challenged by mixed empirical results and a lack of longitudinal research. This study addresses these issues through an experiment in which undergraduate geoscience students attended two temporally separated VFT sessions through desktop virtual reality (dVR) or iVR, with their learning experience and outcomes measured after each session. Our results show higher levels of enjoyment and satisfaction as well as a stronger sense of spatial presence in iVR students in both VFTs compared to dVR students, but no improvement in learning outcomes in iVR compared to dVR. More importantly, we found that there exists a critical interaction between VR condition and repeated participation in VFTs indicating that longitudinal exposu...

Frontiers in computer science, May 4, 2023

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Nov 14, 2022

Frontiers in Nutrition, Jul 19, 2023

Introduction: The modern eating environment has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity... more Introduction: The modern eating environment has been implicated as a driving force of the obesity epidemic. Mixed reality applications may improve traditional methodological assessments of eating behavior by improving the ecological validity of the laboratory setting. Methods: Research experts evaluated the utility and ecological validity of a mixed reality application that allowed immersion within virtual environments through utilizing the passthrough cameras of the head mounted display to view and interact with real foods. An initial evaluation was conducted that involved three virtual environments: a traditional laboratory booth, a non-textured restaurant, and a full-textured restaurant. The feedback from the initial evaluation was used to create a new virtual restaurant environment and a subsequent evaluation was conducted. Results: Nearly all research experts suggested adding social cues such as people and background noise to create a more authentic and ecologically valid experience. The experts scored the new virtual restaurant environment to be more acceptable than eating or conducting research in a sensory booth but scored lower when compared to conducting research in a real-world restaurant setting. Discussion: The results of this evaluation suggest that mixed reality applications may be a new methodology to assess environmental influences of eating behavior and may be a promising direction for eating behavior and sensory science research.

Journal of Biological Education

Frontiers in Computer Science

While different crowdsourcing platforms promote remote data collection, experiments in the immers... more While different crowdsourcing platforms promote remote data collection, experiments in the immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) research community are predominantly performed in person. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has forced researchers in different disciplines, including iVR, to seriously consider remote studies. In this paper, we present a remote study using the Immersive Virtual Alimentation and Nutrition (IVAN) application, designed to educate users about food-energy density and portion size control. We report on the results of a remote experiment with 45 users using the IVAN app. In IVAN, users actively construct knowledge about energy density by manipulating virtual food items, and explore the concept of portion size control through hypothesis testing and assembling virtual meals in iVR. To explore the feasibility of conducting remote iVR studies using an interactive health-related application for nutrition education, two conditions were devised (interactive vs. passive). The r...

Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

AGU Fall Meeting 2020, Dec 10, 2020

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2020

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019

Frontiers in Environmental Science

We evaluated whether teaching the public about the “critical zone”–the Earth’s outer skin, critic... more We evaluated whether teaching the public about the “critical zone”–the Earth’s outer skin, critical to all life—via a digital serious game can affect adults’ systems thinking about the environment and support policies to protect the environment. An experiment (N = 152) compared the effects of playing “CZ Investigator” versus viewing a static website on systems thinking about the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus and support for relevant public policies. The serious game had the strongest effects on our outcomes of interest for those participants with less past science education. For these individuals, the serious game, relative to the static website, increased perceptions of the strength of interconnections across food, energy, and water systems (p < .01) and support for policies that regulated human impacts on the environment (p < .01). Mediation analysis revealed that increases in systems thinking explain increases in policy support. This group of users also indicated that the g...

This data collected to reflect on learning experience and performance of students in an introduct... more This data collected to reflect on learning experience and performance of students in an introductory geology course when learning about earthquake events in virtual reality

2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 2020

The critical zone (CZ) plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus, yet in its entirety, ... more The critical zone (CZ) plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus, yet in its entirety, it is not well understood by society. Challenges range from imagining the invisible (from bedrock to soil) to understanding complex relations between the involved components. We have launched a transdisciplinary project driven by immersive technologies that allow for an extension of what physical reality offers society about the concept of CZ. We have developed a VR serious game that enables learners to have a concrete experience about what a CZ is, and how natural and human processes affect it.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2021

Reference frames provide structure for spatial cognition and support spatial knowledge developmen... more Reference frames provide structure for spatial cognition and support spatial knowledge development across different scales. This study sheds light on the relationship between geographic scale, defi...

2020 IEEE 8th International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH), 2020

The Critical Zone (CZ), the near surface more portion of the terrestrial Earth is a complex conce... more The Critical Zone (CZ), the near surface more portion of the terrestrial Earth is a complex concept that plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus. Due to its complexity, the concept of the CZ and its components are not well understood by society. Challenges range from imagining the invisible (the soil, rock, and water beneath us) to understanding complex relations between the involved components. To create awareness on a societal level, we have initiated a transdisciplinary project driven by immersive and gaming technologies that allow for an extension of what physical reality offers society about the concept of the CZ. We have developed a serious iVR game that enables learners to have a concrete experience about the CZ, and how natural and human processes affect it.

2020 6th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), 2020

Способи одержання сорбентів із міскантусу та дослідження їх сорбційних властивостей щодо іонів Pb... more Способи одержання сорбентів із міскантусу та дослідження їх сорбційних властивостей щодо іонів Pb(II) та Cd(II)

2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 2021

Fast-tracked by need for field trip alternatives during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Strike and Dip... more Fast-tracked by need for field trip alternatives during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Strike and Dip (SaD) tool uses structure from motion 3D models of rocks in a virtual environment to facilitate teaching students how to measure the orientation of rock faces, necessary for the completion of geologic maps. Spatial reasoning is a difficult skill to master for geology students, although a significant component of their studies involves visualising 3D structures from 2D representations, in particular, maps. More time and experience is necessary for students to practice their spatial reasoning skills, but this is a logistical challenge. The SaD tool provides an interface that resolves these logistics of practice time and field site access. Geology is often first characterised as a field science, but recent and increasing efforts to make a more inclusive environment have shown a demand to establish a comprehensive alternative to fieldwork/trips. The SaD tool is malleable, and while providing an inclusive way to teach core components, it is also capable of an array of field experiences for almost every sub-field within the geosciences. In this pilot study, introductory geoscience students were assigned a geologic mapping lab using the SaD tool. Results overall were positive in regard to the usefulness of the tool and provide us with three main directions for next steps in research and development.

Please contact the corresponding author Jiayan Zhao (zjyzjy1121@gmail.com) if you have any questi... more Please contact the corresponding author Jiayan Zhao (zjyzjy1121@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

2021 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 2021

We report on the results of a study in the context of place-based immersive VR (iVR) geoscience e... more We report on the results of a study in the context of place-based immersive VR (iVR) geoscience education that compares the experiences and learning of 45 students after going through an immersive virtual field trip, using either a lower-sensing but scalable Oculus Quest or a higher-sensing but tethered HTC Vive Pro. Our results suggest that with content design considerations, standalone HMDs can be a viable replacement for high-end ones in large-scale educational studies. Furthermore, our results also suggest that the spatial ability of students can be a determining factor for their experiences and learning.

Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2021

Virtual and immersive virtual reality, VR and iVR, provide flexible and engaging learning opportu... more Virtual and immersive virtual reality, VR and iVR, provide flexible and engaging learning opportunities, such as virtual field trips (VFTs). Despite its growing popularity for education, understanding how iVR compared to non-immersive media influences learning is still challenged by mixed empirical results and a lack of longitudinal research. This study addresses these issues through an experiment in which undergraduate geoscience students attended two temporally separated VFT sessions through desktop virtual reality (dVR) or iVR, with their learning experience and outcomes measured after each session. Our results show higher levels of enjoyment and satisfaction as well as a stronger sense of spatial presence in iVR students in both VFTs compared to dVR students, but no improvement in learning outcomes in iVR compared to dVR. More importantly, we found that there exists a critical interaction between VR condition and repeated participation in VFTs indicating that longitudinal exposu...