ABSTRACT
Illusions of self-movement (vection) can be used in virtual reality (VR) and other applications to give users the embodied sensation that they are moving when physical movement is unfeasible or too costly. Whereas a large body of vection literature studied how various parameters of the presented visual stimulus affect vection, little is known how different display types might affect vection. As a step toward addressing this gap, we conducted three experiments to compare vection and usability parameters between commonly used VR displays, ranging from stereoscopic projection and 3D TV to high-end head-mounted display (HMD, NVIS SX111) and recent low-cost HMD (Oculus Rift). The last experiment also compared these two HMDs in their native full field of view (FOV) and a reduced, matched FOV of 72° × 45°. Participants moved along linear and curvilinear paths in the virtual environment, reported vection onset time, and rated vection intensity at the end of each trial. In addition, user ratings on immersion, motion sickness, vection, and overall preference were recorded retrospectively and compared between displays. Unexpectedly, there were no significant effects of display on vection measures. Reducing the FOV for the HMDs (from full to 72° × 45°) decreased vection onset latencies, but did not affect vection intensity. As predicted, curvilinear paths yielded earlier and more intense vection. Although vection has often been proposed to predict or even cause motion sickness, we observed no correlation for any of the displays studied. In conclusion, perceived self-motion and other user experience measures proved surprisingly tolerant toward changes in display type as long as the FOV was roughly matched. This suggests that display choice for vection research and VR applications can be largely based on other considerations as long as the provided FOV is sufficiently large.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of IV contrast-enhanced 64-MDCT with and without the use of oral contrast material in diagnosing appendicitis in patients with abdominal pain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a randomized trial of a convenience sample of adult patients presenting to an urban academic emergency department with acute nontraumatic abdominal pain and clinical suspicion of appendicitis, diverticulitis, or small-bowel obstruction. Patients were enrolled between 8 am and 11 pm when research assistants were present. Consenting subjects were randomized into one of two groups: Group 1 subjects underwent 64-MDCT performed with oral and IV contrast media and group 2 subjects underwent 64-MDCT performed solely with IV contrast material. Three expert radiologists independently reviewed the CT examinations, evaluating for the presence of appendicitis. Each radiologist interpreted 202 examinations, ensuring that each examination was interpreted by two radiologists. Individual reader performance and a combined interpretation performance of the two readers assigned to each case were calculated. In cases of disagreement, the third reader was asked to deliver a tiebreaker interpretation to be used to calculate the combined reader performance. Final outcome was based on operative, clinical, and follow-up data. We compared radiologic diagnoses with clinical outcomes to calculate the diagnostic accuracy of CT in both groups. RESULTS: Of the 303 patients enrolled, 151 patients (50%) were randomized to group 1 and the remaining 152 (50%) were randomized to group 2. The combined reader performance for the diagnosis of appendicitis in group 1 was a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI, 76.8-100%) and specificity of 97.1% (95% CI, 92.7-99.2%). The performance in group 2 was a sensitivity of 100% (73.5-100%) and specificity of 97.1% (92.9-99.2%). CONCLUSION: Patients presenting with nontraumatic abdominal pain imaged using 64-MDCT with isotropic reformations had similar characteristics for the diagnosis of appendicitis when IV contrast material alone was used and when oral and IV contrast media were used.
