Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915
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Item Comparative analysis of fire evacuation decision-making in immersive vs. non-immersive virtual reality environments(Elsevier B V, 2025-11-01) Zhang Y; Paes D; Feng Z; Scorgie D; He P; Lovreglio RUnderstanding emergency behavior is crucial for designing safer, resilient infrastructure. Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) realistically simulates emergencies but is resource-intensive, so systematic comparisons with non-immersive VR remain scarce. To address this gap, a multifactorial VR fire-evacuation experiment was conducted in which participants navigated a room with three exits under varied conditions (e.g., social influence, smoke presence, exit distance, exit familiarity). Results indicated no significant difference in overall decision-making between immersive and non-immersive VR. Nevertheless, immersion modulated key factors: in immersive VR, participants preferred nearer exits, were more susceptible to social influence, and experienced stronger effects of smoke and exit familiarity. Smoke also reduced the influence of exit distance. Personal factors (e.g., prior VR experience, age, gender) shaped perceptions and emotions; heightened negative emotions and perceived risk were associated with less rational (i.e., suboptimal) choices, particularly in immersive VR. These insights inform VR safety training, guiding simulations that more faithfully replicate real emergencies.Item A Virtual Reality Exit Choice Experiment to Assess the Impact of Social Influence and Fire Wardens in a Metro Station Evacuation(Springer Nature, 2025-05-19) Lu S; Rodriguez M; Feng Z; Paes D; Daemei AB; Vancetti R; Mander S; Mandal T; Rao KR; Lovreglio RAssessing evacuation time is a fundamental task in fire engineering. One of the key decisions made in evacuation dynamics is exit choice. In this work, we propose a new immersive virtual reality (VR) experiment to assess the effects of social influence and fire wardens’ instructions on the exit chosen. We also investigate if and how the perceived level of authority of the fire wardens (i.e., metro staff members or firefighters) can affect these decisions. The proposed immersive VR experiment includes 12 different scenarios during a fire evacuation in an underground metro station. A sample of 131 participants took part in the experiment, making 1048 choices. We estimate a discrete choice model to quantify if and how these factors affect the participants’ decisions. The results show that both instructions by fire wardens and social influence significantly affect exit choice and that the impact of fire wardens can change depending on their perceived level of authority.Item Video see-through augmented reality fire safety training: A comparison with virtual reality and video training(Elsevier B.V., 2024-12-10) Domgue K LI; Paes D; Feng Z; Mander S; Datoussaid S; Descamps T; Rahouti A; Lovreglio RSafety training is crucial to mitigate the risk of damage when a disaster occurs and can play a vital role in enhancing community response. Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology for safety training that holds great pedagogical potential. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of AR training in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention, as well as self-efficacy enhancement. We developed a new video see-through AR training tool on a tablet to teach users about operating a fire extinguisher to put out a fire following the PASS procedure: Pull, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep (PASS). The AR training tool was tested with 60 participants. Test results were systematically compared with findings from the literature investigating Virtual Reality (VR) and video-based safety training. The findings indicate that, directly after the training, AR outperformed traditional video training in terms of knowledge retention, long-term self-efficacy, and quality of instructions. However, the AR experience was not as effective as the VR experience in all these areas, but the AR group had a smaller decrease in knowledge over time. These findings suggest that the AR-based training approach offers benefits in long-term memory recall.Item Can active and passive wayfinding systems support fire evacuation in buildings? Insights from a virtual reality-based experiment(Elsevier B.V., 2023-05-24) Bernardini G; Lovreglio R; Quagliarini E; D'Orazio MOccupant safety in case of building fires depends on the selection of proper evacuation routes. Today, several passive and active Emergency Wayfinding Systems (EWSs) have been proposed to support occupant route choices. Nevertheless, their effectiveness should be accurately assessed before being manufactured and used. In this sense, Virtual Reality (VR) could support the design and preliminary evaluation phases, using the Theory of Affordances to quantitatively verify if the EWSs are correctly visible, understood, and able to support users in fulfilling the evacuation goal. This work hence aims at comparing the efficiency of different EWSs in terms of the Theory of Affordances through a VR experiment involving more than 70 volunteers of different ages. The experimental setup focuses on three types of EWSs (punctual and photoluminescent; passive, continuous and photoluminescent; continuous and active) and lights-on, lights-off and smoke conditions in an educational building. Results mainly indicate that the passive EWSs receive a higher rating while supporting the direction selection, while the active EWS is more effective along mono-directional paths. The work also confirms the capabilities of the proposed combined affordances-based and VR-based approach, boosting future works and suggesting additional comparisons between real-world and VR experiments on emergency wayfinding tasks and systems.Item A non-immersive virtual reality serious game application for flood safety training(Elsevier B.V., 2023-08-12) D'Amico A; Bernardini G; Lovreglio R; Quagliarini EVarious methodologies and technologies have been developed and tested to train communities for natural hazards and investigate human behaviour. The combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Serious Games (SG) represents a promising solution to expose communities to different hazardous scenarios in a totally safe way and without exposing the testers to any real risks. Previous studies tested VR SG for several different natural hazards and safety training scenarios, but only a few applications have been proposed within the context of flood safety training. Furthermore, comprehensive prototyping works aimed at evaluating VR SG applications in terms of knowledge acquisition, self-efficacy and user experience, are still needed. This work proposes a novel non-immersive VR SG in the context of users' safety in the event of flooding in the urban built environment, pursuing the users' safety training. The proposed application is based on several modules, which can be combined to form different storylines and training objectives. The VR SG capabilities are demonstrated here by firstly considering one significant storyline. Results show a significant increase in self-efficacy and safety knowledge after the VR experience, thus suggesting the possibility to exploit it for increasing users’ awareness and preparedness. Furthermore, results also demonstrate the existence of similarities between real-world behaviours and VR choices by the tested individuals, thus suggesting how an application of this kind could also be used to support the development and validation of flood evacuation simulators.Item Investigating the relationship between three-dimensional perception and presence in virtual reality-reconstructed architecture.(Elsevier B.V., 2023-01-13) Paes D; Irizarry J; Billinghurst M; Pujoni DIdentifying and characterizing the factors that affect presence in virtual environments has been acknowledged as a critical step to improving Virtual Reality (VR) applications in the built environment domain. In the search to identify those factors, the research objective was to test whether three-dimensional perception affects presence in virtual environments. A controlled within-group experiment utilizing perception and presence questionnaires was conducted, followed by data analysis, to test the hypothesized unidirectional association between three-dimensional perception and presence in two different virtual environments (non-immersive and immersive). Results indicate no association in either of the systems studied, contrary to the assumption of many scholars in the field but in line with recent studies on the topic. Consequently, VR applications in architectural design may not necessarily need to incorporate advanced stereoscopic visualization techniques to deliver highly immersive experiences, which may be achieved by addressing factors other than depth realism. As findings suggest that the levels of presence experienced by users are not subject to the display mode of a 3D model (whether immersive or non-immersive display), it may still be possible for professionals involved in the review of 3D models (e.g., designers, contractors, clients) to experience high levels of presence through non-stereoscopic VR systems provided that other presence-promoting factors are included.Item Virtual reality for safety training: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis(Elsevier B.V., 2023-11-18) Scorgie D; Feng Z; Paes D; Parisi F; Yiu TW; Lovreglio RUnsafe behaviour in the workplace and disaster events can lead to serious harm and damage. Safety training has been a widely studied topic over the past two decades. Its primary aim is to save lives and minimise damage but requires regular refreshers. New digital technologies are helping in the process of enhancing safety training for better knowledge acquisition and retention. Among them, Virtual Reality (VR) can provide an engaging and exciting training experience, and there is a need to evaluate its application and effectiveness in safety training. This study aims to investigate VR safety training solutions applied to various industries (excluding medical and military applications), such as construction, fire, aviation, and mining. This was achieved by systematically reviewing 52 articles published between 2013 and 2021 to answer nine research questions. Fourteen domains were examined, with construction and fire safety training being the most prevalent since 2018. Findings reveal that only a small percentage (9.6 %) of the studies explicitly adopted theories while developing and testing VR applications. Additionally, this review highlights a critical need for long-term retention measurements, as only 36 % of studies provided such data. Finally, the two meta-analyses proposed in this work demonstrate that VR safety training outperforms traditional training in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention.Item Prototyping and testing a virtual reality counterterrorism serious game for active shooting(Elsevier B.V., 2022-09-28) Lovreglio R; Daphney-Chloe N; Rahouti A; Paes D; Feng Z; Shipman AAn active shooting emergency requires an effective strategy to increase the chances of survival of the attacked population. Educational environments are one of the most common locations of such events. To reduce the impact of these disasters, several emergency plans have been developed and put in place. Traditionally, these emergency plans are taught to occupants using non-interactive videos, drills, etc. However, these conventional methods present many limitations regarding trainees' knowledge acquisition, engagement and self-efficacy. To overcome them, this paper presents the prototype of an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) Serious Game (SG) for counterterrorism training. A user-centred evaluation of the proposed training SG was conducted with 32 participants. The experiment aimed to investigate the impact of the proposed tool on participants' knowledge regarding the safest actions to take in case of an active shooter attack. Participants' intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy levels were also assessed before and after the VR-based training. Findings indicate that participants’ knowledge, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy significantly increased immediately after the training.Item Extended reality (xR) flight simulators as an adjunct to traditional flight training methods: a scoping review(Springer Nature on behalf of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., 2023-10-20) Ross G; Gilbey AOver the next 20 years, it is predicted that an additional 760,000 new pilots will be needed to meet the growing demands of the global aviation industry. With current training capability, this may be difficult to achieve. A potential means of improving the efficiency and lowering the cost of flight training, which arguably may be prohibitively expensive to many potential trainee pilots, is to use extended reality simulation in place of traditional flight simulators and aircraft for at least some of the required training. To provide a better understanding of the possibilities in this regard, and where current research has advanced, a scoping review was undertaken. In total, 18 studies were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria. It was concluded that extended reality technology has the potential to be successfully employed in flight training—saving time and money, whilst also enabling increased training capability, although some potential limitations were identified. The interest in this technology, combined with evidence pointing to its potential usefulness in flight training, suggests that further examination in this area by academia and industry is warranted.Item Prototyping and Validating a Non-immersive Virtual Reality Serious Game for Healthcare Fire Safety Training(1/11/2021) Rahouti A; Lovreglio R; Datoussaïd S; Descamps TIn a healthcare context, the success of a fire safety procedure in a real-life emergency mainly depends on staff decisions and actions. One of the factors influencing staff decision-making is their training. In most healthcare facilities, safety educators use slide-based lectures as a training tool. Virtual Reality (VR) is gaining fire safety community attention for being an interesting training tool. However, few studies have assessed the effectiveness of VR-based fire safety training simulators compared with a slide-based lecture. The present research proposes a novel non-immersive VR-based training for healthcare fire safety education. This paper describes the prototyping steps required to develop a non-immersive VR serious game (SG) to train the staff of Vincent Van Gogh (VVG) hospital in Belgium. The paper finally validates the VR SG comparing its effectiveness against slide-based lecture training. 78 staff from VVG hospital in Belgium participated in this study. They were divided into two groups: Group A was trained using a slide-based lecture, and Group B was trained using the VR SG. The results indicated that the VR SG was more effective than the slide-based lecture in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention and in terms of self-efficacy increment in short and long terms than the slide-based lecture.