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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2024.1252351
This article is part of the Research Topic Use of AR/MR/VR in the Context of Occupational Safety and Health View all 6 articles

Visual Search for Hazardous Items: Using Virtual Reality (VR) in Laypersons to Test Wearable Displays for Firefighters

Provisionally accepted
Sascha Feder Sascha Feder 1*Aline Püschel Aline Püschel 2Melis Simsek Melis Simsek 1Stephan Odenwald Stephan Odenwald 2Alexandra Bendixen Alexandra Bendixen 1Wolfgang Einhauser Wolfgang Einhauser 3
  • 1 Cognitive Systems Lab, Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
  • 2 Professorship for Sports Equipment and Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
  • 3 Physics of Cognition Group, Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Lower Saxony, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In virtual reality (VR), we assessed how untrained participants searched for fire sources with the digital twin of a novel augmented-reality (AR) device: a firefighter's helmet equipped with a heat sensor and an integrated display indicating the heat distribution in its field of view. This was compared to the digital twin of a current state-of-the-art device, a handheld thermal imaging camera. The study had three aims: (i) compare the novel device to the current standard, (ii) demonstrate the usefulness of VR for developing AR devices, (iii) investigate visual search in a complex, realistic task free of visual context. Users detected fire sources faster with the thermal camera than with the helmet display. Responses in target-present trials were faster than in target-absent trials for both devices. Fire localization after detection was numerically faster and more accurate, in particular in the horizontal plane, for the helmet display than for the thermal camera. Search was strongly biased to start on the left-hand side of each room, reminiscent of pseudoneglect in scene viewing. Our study exemplifies how VR can be used to study vision in realistic settings, to foster the development of AR devices, and to obtain results relevant to basic science and applications alike.

    Keywords: visual search, virtual reality, augmented reality, pseudoneglect, firefighting, Digital Twin

    Received: 03 Jul 2023; Accepted: 16 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Feder, Püschel, Simsek, Odenwald, Bendixen and Einhauser. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sascha Feder, Cognitive Systems Lab, Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.