VR May Help Flu Vaccination Rates

Using a virtual reality simulation to show how flu spreads and its impact on others could be a way to encourage more people to get a flu vaccination, according to a study by researchers at the University of Georgia and the Oak Ridge Associated Universities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This is the first published study to look at immersive virtual reality as a communication tool for improving flu vaccination rates among flu vaccine avoidant 18- to 49-year-old adults. The research was conducted by faculty at Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The research was conducted with support from a grant and researchers from ORAU. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the 2017-18 flu season, only 26.9% of 18- to 49-year-olds in the United States received a recommended annual influenza vaccination even though it is recommended for all 18- to 49-year-olds. The low current acceptance of flu vaccination makes it important to identify more persuasive ways to educate these adults about flu vaccination. The findings from this study suggest one-way virtual reality can be more effective as it can create a sense of presence or feeling like one is a part of what is happening. The 171 participants in this study self-identified as those who had not received a flu shot last year and did not plan to receive one during the 2017-18 influenza season. 

In the study, participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: 1) a five-minute virtual reality experience; 2) a five-minute video that was identical to the VR experience but without the 3-dimensional and interactive elements; 3) an e-pamphlet that used text and pictures from the video presented on a tablet computer; and 4) a control condition that only viewed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza Vaccination Information Statement, which is often provided before a flu vaccine is given and describes benefits and risks. Participants in the VR, video and e-pamphlet conditions also viewed the CDC VIS before answering a series of questions regarding flu vaccination, including whether they would get a flu vaccine. In the VR condition, participants were provided headsets, which enabled them to vividly experience the information and events being shown as if they were in the story, and video game controllers, which enabled them to actively participate at points in the story.  Compared to video or the e-pamphlet, the VR condition created a stronger perception of presence which increased participants’ concern about transmitting flu to others. This increased concern was associated with greater confidence that one’s flu vaccination would protect others, more positive beliefs about flu vaccine and increased intention to get a flu vaccination.

More information:

https://news.uga.edu/virtual-reality-flu-vaccination-rates/

Tool Creates Videos From Themed Text

In a world of novice photographers and videographers, capturing a deluge of content via their smartphones and handheld devices, there is a need for an intelligent, easy-to-use tool for automating the creation of movies and video montages. To date, many quality videos still rely on professional frame-based editing tools to manipulate raw footage and produce a coherent video with a captivating storyline. A global team of computer scientists, from Tsinghua and Beihang Universities in China, Harvard University in the US and IDC Herzliya in Israel, have developed Write-A-Video, a new tool that generates videos from themed text. Using words and text editing, the tool automatically determines which scenes or shots are chosen from a repository to illustrate the desired storyline. The tool enables novice users to produce quality video montages in a simple and user-friendly manner that doesn't require professional video production and editing skills.

While existing video editing tools still demand knowledge in video processing and editing, the researchers' new method allows novices to create videos that tell stories more naturally. Write-A-Video, say the researchers, allows users to create a video montage by simply editing the text that accompanies the video. For example, adding or deleting text, and moving sentences around convert to video-editing operations, such as finding corresponding shots, cutting and rearranging shots, and creating a final video montage result. The team's research shows that intelligent digital tools combining the abilities of humans and algorithms together can assist users in the creative process. For the study, the approach was tested on various pieces of themed text and video repositories, with quantitative evaluation and user studies. Users without any video editing experience could produce satisfactory videos using the Write-A-Video tool, sometimes even faster than professionals utilizing frame-based editing software.

More information:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191114115844.htm

A Mathematical Model Understanding Vision

Researchers are creating a single mathematical model that unites years of biological experiments and explains how the brain produces elaborate visual reproductions of the world based on scant visual information. They have been building their model by incorporating one basic element of vision at a time. They’ve explained how neurons in the visual cortex interact to detect the edges of objects and changes in contrast, and now they’re working on explaining how the brain perceives the direction in which objects are moving. In lab experiments, researchers present primates with simple visual stimuli — black-and-white patterns that vary in terms of contrast or the direction in which they enter the primates’ visual fields. Using electrodes hooked to the primates’ visual cortices, the researchers track the nerve pulses produced in response to the stimuli. A good model should replicate the same kinds of pulses when presented with the same stimuli.

Currently they are working on adding directional sensitivity into their model — which would explain how the visual cortex reconstructs the direction in which objects are moving across your visual field. After that, they’ll start trying to explain how the visual cortex recognizes temporal patterns in visual stimuli. They hope to decipher, for example, why we can perceive the flashes in a blinking traffic light, but we don’t see the frame-by-frame action in a movie. At that point, they’ll have a simple model for activity in just one of the six layers in the visual cortex — the layer where the brain roughs out the basic outlines of visual impression. Their work doesn’t address the remaining five layers, where more sophisticated visual processing goes on. It also doesn’t say anything about how the visual cortex distinguishes colors, which occurs through an entirely different and more difficult neural pathway. While their model is far from uncovering the full mystery of vision, it is a step in the right direction.

More information:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-mathematical-model-unlocks-the-secrets-of-vision-20190821/

Neurons That Map Memories Identified

An important aspect of human memory is our ability to conjure specific moments from the vast array of experiences that have occurred in any given setting. For example, if asked to recommend a tourist itinerary for a city you have visited many times, your brain somehow enables you to selectively recall and distinguish specific memories from your different trips to provide an answer. Studies have shown that declarative memory relies on healthy medial temporal lobe structures in the brain, including the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex (EC). These regions are also important for spatial cognition. However, it has not been clear if or how this spatial map in the brain relates to a person's memory of events at those locations, and how neuronal activity in these regions enables us to target a particular memory for retrieval among related experiences.

A team led by neuro-engineers at Columbia Engineering has found the first evidence that individual neurons in the human brain target specific memories during recall. They studied recordings in neurosurgical patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains and examined how the patients' brain signals corresponded to their behavior while performing a virtual-reality (VR) object-location memory task. The researchers identified memory-trace cells whose activity was spatially tuned to the location where subjects remembered encountering specific objects. The team was able to measure the activity of single neurons by taking advantage of a rare opportunity: invasively recording from the brains of 19 neurosurgical patients at several hospitals, including the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

More information:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191112095740.htm

Entertainment Computing 2019 Article

Recently a collaborative paper between De Montfort University, Coventry University and Masaryk University (HCI Lab) was published at the journal of Entertainment Computing, sponsored by Elsevier. The paper is entitled “Assessing the perceived realism of agent grouping dynamics for adaptation and simulation” and is focused on applications targeting human interaction. The paper presents a novel method using psychophysics to assess the perceived realism of behavioural features with respect to virtual crowds. 

Focus is given to the grouping dynamics feature, whereby crowd composition in terms of group frequency and density is evaluated through thirty-six conditions based on crowd data captured from three pedestrianised real-world locations. The study, conducted with seventy-eight healthy participants, allowed for the calculation of perceptual thresholds, with configurations identified that appear most real to human viewers. Results suggest that viewers have more perceptual flexibility when group frequency and density are increased, rather than decreased.

More information:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1875952119300321