Arthur MANEUVRIER

Preamble:

If you would like to obtain any of the software or virtual environments (Unity3D, C#) or simply learn more about them, please feel free to contact me. Depending on your project (for example, if you are a student and/or if the project is of social interest), I can help you modify the environment or develop it on another platform (mobile, Mac, Linux).

None of these tools collect data externally. It is the user's responsibility to ensure that all human data is protected and collected ethically. All software is licensed under CC-BY-SA.

VR environments:

• Spaceshooter:

  a first-person shooter game in a virtual Western-style environment.

• Virtual Rod and Frame Test:

  a cognitive and perceptual test adapted to virtual reality.

• Starwalker:

  a virtual reality mini-game platform initially developed for lower limb rehabilitation.

• Virtual version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

  : a traditional Wisconsin card sorting test adapted to virtual reality.

• Virtual assessment of spatial cognition

  : a virtual assessment of spatial cognition.

• Threatening virtual environment

  : an evaluation of the sense of presence.

Other software:

• PhiVR

  a small tool used to i) describe the user's profile in virtual reality ii) quantify immersion and iii) predict the user experience.

• Multipic

  a tool used to assess the inhibitory capacity of bilingual children.

Space Shooter

• The virtual environment used in this Frontier's paper: 10.3389/frvir.2023.1307925 and in this Virtual Reality's paper: 10.1007/s10055-024-00993-2
• A 13.5 minutes virtual immersion into a Space Shooter, using track controller turned into a pistol (1 shot per second). The train moves at 0.5m per second, which is a very slow linear visual flow (or very slow walk pace), but can be changed to induce cybersickness.
• 5 different possible conditions: normal, easy, hard, flexible, anxiogen. Normal and anxiogen have the same difficulty level, but anxiogen is more obscure and dark. Difficulty influences the health points of the enemy and their fire rate. In flexible difficulty, the difficulty adapts to the performance of the player. In the example video which follows, the difficulty is set to "flexible" at the most difficult level (because I'm very good at the game, which is a priviliege of making it).
• An automatic tutorial teachs the participant how to play the game, and gives all the objective (protect the train by shooting at the enemies and their projectiles).
• Recorded variables: number of projectiles hitting the train, player's code (name), number of shots fired (player), number of shots landed (player), number of projectiles neutralized, average difficulty (flexible condition only), headtracking (15 Hz). Exports to .csv
• Music made by the Electro-Static Lobster. Thanks !

Virtual Rod And Frame Test

• The virtual environment used in this Frontier's paper: 10.3389/frvir.2023.1307925
• A very standard HMD supported rod and frame test in virtual reality, originally developed by Witkin et al. 1948 in order to assess field dependence.
• 16 trials, with a systematic counter balancing of the rod and frame rotation: -27°/+18°, -27/-18°, +27/-18°, +27°/+18° x2
• Enter participant's code before beginning. Instructions are presented (audio + image) in French but can easily be modified or removed. Automatically export data (absolute °) in .csv with the date and time.

Starwalker

• Starwalker is a research and clinical virtual reality video games platform for a population of children with kinesiophobia. Kinesiophobia is defined as "an excessive, irrational and debilitating fear of movement and physical activity resulting from a sense of vulnerability to a painful injury or painful news". This phenomenon is at the heart of the pain chronicisiation process, generates significant anxiety as well as avoidance behaviours that may ultimately be responsible for the persistence of pain problems.
• Virtual reality is now seen as a promising tool in motor rehabilitation. In addition, the analgesic effect of virtual reality is also known, notably thanks to Hoffman's pioneering work on patients with severe burns. . This pain distraction effect is often attributed to the sense of presence: the feeling that one is, in virtual reality, actually present in the virtual environment rather than the physical one.
• The combination of the advances of virtual reality in rehabilitation and in pain reduction makes virtual reality a particularly interesting tool to accompany and help child patients in their lower limb kinesiophobia. Two other points should be highlighted in the contributions of virtual reality: firstly, it is a strong phenomenological experience which can offer children playful applications that probably provoke greater commitment from their part. Secondly, a concept related to proprioception and the psychology of perception seems particularly relevant in the case of virtual reality kinesiophobia: the "sense of embodiment", the sensation of owning, being and controlling a body. It would indeed be interesting to see if the subjects, visually cut off from their problematic limbs, would increase their capacities and amplitudes of movement via the control of a virtual avatar.
• More pragmatically, Starwalker is mini-games platform where participants interact with the virtual environment with their feet using the 3DRudder, althought Starwalker can also be played using a standart hand controller. The player is immersed in virtual reality and must catch or avoid objects, shoot at aliens, play bowling or pool against the computer. Centre d'Evaluation et de Traitement de la Douleur at the Clémenceau Hospital. The equipment (3DRudder, HTC-Vive head mounted display and computer) was financed by a Pièces Jaunes project.

Virtual Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

• The virtual environment used in this Virtual Reality's: 10.1007/s10055-022-00698-4
• The executive functions evaluation is a HMD supported virtual environment. This environment has been used for my PhD thesis in order to measure the impact of the sense of presence and cybersickness (and other human factors) on performance in virtual reality.
• A very traditional WCST implemented in automatic virtual reality, validated by a neuropsychologist. The linear visual flow induces a small amount of cybersickness, which was used to observe inter-individual differences.
• A short automatic tutorial teaches the participant how to use the environment and take the test.

Spatial cognition evaluation

• The spatial cognition evaluation is a HMD supported virtual environment. This environment has been used for my PhD thesis in order to i) measure the impact of the sense of presence and cybersickness on performance in virtual reality and ii) evaluate the dynamic aspect of field dependence and visual re-weighting in virtual reality. These two studies were both published in Frontiers in Virtual Reality (Study 1 and Study 2). This virtual environment has 4 scenes that automatically play.
• Scene 1 is a visit in the virtual environment, made of buildings from the Ancient Rome. Wood signs lead the way. The participant has to open some doors in order to reach the final point. But there are also "wrong" doors, which are closed. T All the wrongs doors tried are automatically recorded, along with the participant's position (4 times / seconds) and the duration.
• Scene 2 is a spatial cognition assessment. In the virtual environment, the participant is asked different questions about what he saw or not during the visit. All the answers are automatically recorded.
• Scene 3 is a new visit in the same virtual environment than 1, but the wood signs are gone. Participant is asked to redo the visit he has done in 1. All the wrongs doors tried are automatically recorded, along with the participant's position (4 times / seconds) and the duration.
• Scene 4 is a a final question of spatial cognition evaluation, based on the second visit.

Ecological evaluation of the sense of presence

• This environment was designed to evaluate the sense of presence in several ways: subjective (questionnaire), physiological (heart rate, skin conductance), and behavioral (behavioral response).
• Scene 1 is a visit to a small, gloomy room, reminiscent of a “stone dungeon.” The participant is asked to activate two levers, then open the door at the back to complete the condition.
• Scene 2 is a visit to the same room, but the floor has collapsed. The participant therefore walks on wooden beams above a precipice of about ten meters. The goal is to increase the physiological response of fear, as well as to elicit appropriate behavior.
• Scene 3 is identical to scene 1, except that the participant is confronted with a surprise and fear stimulus when they activate lever 2: a monster appears. Again, the goal is to increase the fear response and thus study the relationship between these responses and the feeling of presence as measured subjectively.

PhiVR

• The PhiVR project was originally conceived during my PhD Thesis and then conceptually updated in a MIT press article. The idea is to help the users of VR, by evaluating the immersive power of a technological system and the propension to immersion of an individual.
• First, the user describes their immersive system by answering questions. This system is then evaluated based on a few components and a reliability score.
• Then, the user describes the cognitive profile of the individual evaluated, which is then evaluated based on a few components and a reliability score.
• Finally, the user computes the predicted experience of the individual, based on the interactions between the system factors components and the human factors components. This user experience is composed of the expected level of cybersickness, the expected complexity of the interface, and the expected level of sense of presence. A global score is given, which can be used either to control for a posteriori data or evaluate a priori which individual can make the most of VR.

Multipic

• Multipic is a Unity3D (optimized for android, pad resolution) software. It is used to measure inhibition skills among bilinguals chidlren.
• First, the experimenters enters the name/code of the participant. Then, the participant writes his or her name.
• During the first part, Multipic will randomly present 50 drawings, with 25 of them being cognates, and 25 of them non-cognates. All drawing are part of the multipic data base (https://www.bcbl.eu/databases/multipic/) from Duñabeitia et al. (2018). The participant has to orally give the name of the drawings.
• After a little test, the second part starts: the participant has to write the name of the 50 item. However, 8 distractors (in english) are randomly placed around the drawing.
• After the 50th drawing, the software automatically saves and stops. The name of the participant, each screen shot of the drawing, as well as the reaction time before starting to write a name are saved locally.