Project Details
Projekt
Risk Assessment Using Virtual Reality Technology - Effects of Subjective Experience
Subject Area
Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Term
from 2014 to 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 251894385
The planned Virtual Reality (VR)-based risk assessment method will allow conducting full risk assessments (RA) based solely on digital data at a very early stage in the product development process. In this context it is conjecturable that by using VR the influence of subjective experience will become more important as it already is for the conventional risk assessment. Therefore the evaluation of the influences of subjective experience when conducting a VR-based RA is the primary goal of the project.Therefore it is necessary to develop a method for the VR-based RA. As part of this method, concepts for the creation of the VR model, for the interaction with the VR environment as well as for the integration and usage of additional information have to be established. The main focus regarding the creation of the VR models are the data conversion from CAD to VR and the visualization of hazard factors (HF). After developing those concepts mentioned above, an instruction for the conduction of the VR-based RA has to be created.In parallel, survey questionnaires will be developed based on existing knowledge on perception of technical objects in virtual environments. Aspects like more complex visualization contents as well as the project focus on recognizing HF have to be considered. In addition it is necessary to combine merely psychological survey questionnaires, i.e. questionnaires that measure the risk tendency of the test person, with questionnaires that measure the sense of presence and account for object characteristics of the visualization. Those survey questionnaires will be used in user tests to evaluate aspects of perception, i.e. recognition and assessment of HF in VR. Furthermore tests will be conducted to assess the influence of the sense of presence as well as the impact of individual personality traits on the quality of the RA. Participants will be experts in RA (Industrial Safety Specialists, Designers) and will be asked to execute a VR-supported RA inside a 5-sided CAVE using the predefined methods.To deepen the knowledge about the influence of subjective experience, a second research aspect, the visualization of hazardous situations, is added. Here, the user tests target the evaluation of behavioral reactions in different hazardous situations. Thus a method to simulate and visualize such hazardous situations has to be developed and corresponding survey instruments have to be created.The results from both user tests will be used to improve the method of VR-supported risk assessment. In addition possible reasons for perception differences between reality and virtual reality will be evinced.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
