Training of Procedural Tasks Through the Use of Virtual Reality and Direct Aids
Jorge Rodrguez, Teresa Gutirrez, J. Emilio, Sara Casado, Iker Aguinag · InTech eBooks · 2012
A high percentage of the human activities are based on procedural tasks, for example cooking a cake, driving a car, fixing a machine, etc. Reading an instruction book, watching a video or listening the explanation from an expert have been the traditional methods to learn procedural tasks.But, most researchers agree that procedural tasks are learnt gradually as a result of practice through repeating exposures to the task.Nowadays, Virtual Reality (VR) technologies canbeusedtoimprovethelearningofaprocedural task and moreover to evaluate the performance of the trainee.For example, a Virtual Environment (VE) can allow the trainees to interact physically with the virtual scenario, integrating a haptic device with the computer vision system, so that trainees can interact and manipulate the virtual objects, feeling the collisions among them and, the most important, they can practice the task under the approach of learning by doing.In this way, trainees can practice in order to improve their abilities until they are proficient with the task.This chapter introduces a new Multimodal Training System (MTS) that provides a new interactive tool for assisting the trainees during the learning of a procedural task in the assembly and disassembly operations.This MTS uses the haptic feedback to simulate the real behaviour of the task and special visual aids to provide information and help trainees to undertake the task.One of the main advantages of this platform is that trainees can learn and practice different procedural tasks without the necessity of having physical access to real tools, components and machines.For example, trainees can assemble/disassemble the different components from a virtual machine as it would be done in the real life.This system was designed and implemented as an activity in the context of the SKILLS project 1 .During the learning of a task,mostofthetimes,trainees need to receive aids with information about how to proceed with the task.From the point of view of the authors, these aids can be divided into two groups according to the type of information that they provide and how this information is provided: direct aids and indirect aids.The difference between both types of aids is in the cognitive load requested by the trainees to interpret and understand the information provided by the aid.In this way, indirect aids require that trainees are active in