Cognitive preference and 3D perceptions in Marine Biology Students

Innovative technologies are the new interactive learning tools for a new generation. In particular, Virtual and Augmented Reality are highly relevant because they involve embodied cognition. However, there are very few studies on how our brain perceives a 3D anaglyph object or a 3D immersive object and if the level of perception is conditioned by cognitive preference and by stimuli recognition. We investigated this field of application in order to understand perceptual processing during Immersive Virtual Reality and 3D anaglyph perception, and to understand how to build a virtual reality movie based on Brain Computer Interface. The aim of this study was to understand how to build a neuroergonomic movie by creating interfaces between the brain and the computer by investigating the modulation of ERP component P3 during a virtual reality task. For the construction of a virtual reality movie with planktonic elements for MAUS, a University Museum, we analyzed a set of images in 2D and 3D active stereoscopic glasses (MAUS objects 2D, Tarbosaurus 3D, Plankton 3D, Plankton 2D, coloured screens 2D). The images were presented with E-prime presentation, in the context of the museum. The images were presented with a Go-no Go paradigm (with E-prime 2.0 presentation) during EEG and GSR recording. Participants were instructed to press a computer key when they recognised an element living in the sea during a presentation of a set of random images in 2D, anaglyph and stereo active 3D. The task was presented in a 3D immersive environment. We recruited 8 Marine Biology and 11 Cultural Heritage university students (both groups were age and gender matched). All the subjects were volunteers and had normal hearing, normal or corrected to normal vision and had right manual dominance. A GLM repeated measures analysis was computed for the amplitude and latency of the P300 component, RT and GSR. Main results from statistical analyses showed significant differences in group and the type of objects in perceptual modality as well as a group x image interaction effect. Analyses for lateralisation showed a significant difference in left amplitude in the direction of an increased amplitude in the left hemisphere in the Marine Biology students. For image condition, we found increased amplitude in the left hemisphere for 3D pictures as well. In agreement with these results, we could say that immersive 3D processing is really different from 2D or 3D non-immersive processing. We can also observe a different kind of arousal, on the left side when the subject was competent and on the right side when the analysis of the plankton stimulus was devoid of semantic knowledge of the image. In conclusion, the stimulus in virtual reality can be analyzed and studied in a much more precise 3D nature, the perception criteria of a 3D immersive stimulus are normally very different and a neuroergonomic and neuroaestethic approach must interface with these perceptive products.