Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies最新文献

Objective. Full immersive virtual reality (VR) technology shows potential for reducing the risks of falls in older adults. There is yet little evidence to support the usability and acceptance on using VR technology application in community aged care service. The study reports on research that aims to address that gap by evaluating the usefulness and acceptance of using an innovative VR application among Chinese older adults from Hong Kong. Methods. A single-arm exploratory study was conducted to evaluate how the participants experienced the use of a fully immersive cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE) VR program on fall prevention. Thirty-one participants were recruited by convenience sampling based on their fall concerns and potential risk of falls. The participants completed 16 training sessions over eight weeks using the VR CAVE application. They were asked to complete a VR usability questionnaire (HK-version) based on the Technology Acceptance Model and previous research, and they took fall risk assessments at the pretest, posttest, and follow-up. Results. The participants’ group significantly showed improvements in reducing the risk factors of falls including balance, functional mobility, walking speed, and fear of falling after VR intervention. Perceived usefulness (PU), perceived enjoyment (PE), user experience (UE), and intention to use (IU) had an overall significant change at different time points. These are important factors to influence the participants’ acceptance of the use of VR technology applications. Perceived ease of use (PEOU) and social norms (SNs) had an inconsistent result, and some items had low validity. The findings indicated a positive training effect on fall prevention and high acceptance of the adoption of the VR technology application. Conclusion. This study supports the growing evidence on the usefulness and acceptance of using full immersive VR training on fall prevention among Chinese older adults. They perceived that the VR CAVE application was useful and innovative as an effective fall prevention training. Technically, the application of VR CAVE technology faces many challenges and is not easily manageable under COVID-19 restrictions and the limitation on technological adaptation for older adults. However, investment in full immersive VR technology application is supported for future adoption in aged care and rehabilitation services.

People are expected to have more opportunities to spend their free time inside the vehicle with advanced vehicle automation in the near future. This will enable people to turn their attention to desirable activities other than driving and to have varied in-vehicle interactions through multimodal ways of conveying and receiving information. Previous studies on in-vehicle multimodal interactions primarily have focused on making users evaluate the impacts of particular multimodal integrations on them, which do not fully provide an overall understanding of user expectations of the multimodal experience in autonomous vehicles. The research was thus designed to fill the research gap by posing the key question “What are the critical aspects that differentiate and characterise in-vehicle multimodal experiences?” To answer this question, five sessions of design fiction workshops were separately conducted with 17 people to understand the users’ expectations of the multimodal experience in autonomous vehicles. Twenty-two subthemes of users’ expected tasks of multimodal experience were extracted through thematic analysis. The research found that two dimensions, attention and duration, are critical aspects that impact in-vehicle multimodal interactions. With this knowledge, a conceptual model of the users’ in-vehicle multimodal experience was proposed with a two-dimensional spectrum, which populates four different layers: sustained, distinct, concurrent, and coherent. The proposed conceptual model could help designers understand and approach users’ expectations more clearly, allowing them to make more informed decisions from the initial stages of the design process.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly developing technology that has the potential to create previously unimaginable chances for our societies. Still, the public’s opinion of AI remains mixed. Since AI has been integrated into many facets of daily life, it is critical to understand how people perceive these systems. The present work investigated the perceived social risk and social value of AI. In a preliminary study, AI’s social risk and social value were first operationalized and explored by adopting a correlational approach. Results highlighted that perceived social value and social risk represent two significant and antagonistic dimensions driving the perception of AI: the higher the perceived risk, the lower the social value attributed to AI. The main study considered pretested AI applications in different domains to develop a classification of AI applications based on perceived social risk and social value. A cluster analysis revealed that in the two-dimensional social risk × social value space, the considered AI technologies grouped into six clusters, with the AI applications related to medical care (e.g., assisted surgery) unexpectedly perceived as the riskiest ones. Understanding people’s perceptions of AI can guide researchers, developers, and policymakers in adopting an anthropocentric approach when designing future AI technologies to prioritize human well-being and ensure AI’s responsible and ethical development in the years to come.

Enhancing the capacity of a luxury brand to stir a deep connection with customers has always been the focus of practitioners in the luxury industry. This study explores the potential role of social media in converting attachment with a luxury brand into desirable marketing outcomes. The relationships between “luxury brand attachment,” “motivation,” “social media usage,” “word-of-mouth,” and “purchase intention” are examined to understand the drivers and outcomes of luxury brand attachment in social media. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 341 social media users on various platforms. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Amos. The results revealed that the most important attribute generating luxury attachment in social media is the capacity of a luxury brand to show prestige and status. The direct relationship between luxury brand attachment and purchase intentions is nonsignificant. A stronger attachment to a luxury brand does not entice direct intention to purchase it unless certain motives drive consumers’ luxury engagement in social media. These insights can guide marketing managers in creating effective strategies for their luxury products.

In the context of a rapidly evolving global communication landscape, this study delves into the influence of social media motivation on online relationship commitment among young adults in Jordan. Utilizing a quantitative methodology, the research operationalizes and tests a conceptual model to assess the correlation between various motivational factors and online relationship commitment. Results reveal that social media exerts a significant influence on online relationship commitment, with information-seeking and trend-following emerging as the most salient contributing factors. Additionally, the study identifies that providing self-status information, social interaction, and entertainment are key motivators that positively impact and strengthen online relationship commitment.

The increasing utilization of virtual teams—driven by advancements in information and communication technology and the forces of globalization—has spurred significant growth in both theoretical and empirical research. Based on the smart literature review framework, this study harnesses artificial intelligence techniques, specifically natural language processing and topic modeling, to extensively analyze the trends in virtual team research spanning the last four decades. Analyses of a dataset comprising 2,184 articles from Scopus-indexed journals discern 16 distinct topics, encompassing critical areas such as communication, leadership, and trust. The trajectory of research topics in this field has witnessed increasing diversification over time. Key subjects such as learning, communication, trust, and leadership have consistently maintained their presence among the ten most frequently explored topics. In contrast, emerging areas such as agile development and patient care have recently become some of the most prominent themes. Employing the state-of-the-art topic modeling technique, BERTopic, this study furnishes a comprehensive and dynamic panorama of the evolving landscape within virtual team research.

This scoping review examines the relationship between parent self-efficacy and children’s screen viewing, to provide context, identify gaps and limitations of the current body of literature, and provide recommendations for future research. We identified 111 studies from a search of four academic databases, of which sixteen were within scope and met inclusion criteria. This review found that parents who identified as more self-efficacious in task-specific areas related to screen time had children with less screen viewing time. This finding suggests that parents who identify as more self-efficacious in these areas may implement more mediation strategies, in line with current public health guidelines. Overall, it highlights the importance of consistent policies that support parents in mediating screen access, whilst maximizing the benefits of screen viewing for learning.

In our increasingly interconnected world, maintaining a healthy balance between online and offline activities is crucial for personal well-being. The Digital Life Balance (DLB) Scale has been introduced to understand the impact of Internet use on well-being, drawing upon the framework of the psychology of harmony and harmonization. This study is aimed at validating and assessing the reliability of the DLB Scale among Turkish university students. A sample of 424 university students (50.7% females, 49.3% males; age range: 20-31 years) participated. The scale was translated into Turkish, and its language validity was ensured through expert reviews. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the construct validity of the scale, effectively measuring Digital Life Balance in the Turkish context. Convergent validity analysis revealed significant correlations between the DLB Scale and measures of well-being and addiction tendencies. The DLB Scale exhibited good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability). Test-retest reliability analysis showed consistent responses over a three-week interval. These findings provide empirical evidence for the validity and reliability of the scale, making it a valuable tool for assessing individuals’ perceptions of balance in their online and offline activities.

In the evolving landscape of education, the integration of flipped and gamified learning into online English courses has remained a complex and underexplored terrain. To address this knowledge gap, our study designed and implemented an innovative hybrid pedagogical model, seamlessly blending flipped and gamified learning principles into the context of online TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) instruction. The study, conducted within a public university in Bengkulu Province, Indonesia, included 27 carefully selected research participants (11.1% male, 88.9% female) from a population of 80 third-year undergraduate English majors, employing purposive convenient sampling techniques to ensure diversity representation. Our comprehensive data collection encompassed pre- and post-TOEFL assessments, surveys, and reflective essays, with qualitative data subjected to thematic analysis and quantitative data analyzed through descriptive statistics, nonparametric Wilcoxon rank tests, and Spearman’s correlation analysis. The results unveiled a multifaceted landscape, showing improvements in student enjoyment and motivation alongside increased anxiety. However, the intervention demonstrated significant enhancements in TOEFL listening, reading, and overall scores, although structure and written expression remained largely unchanged. Intriguingly, while heightened enjoyment correlated with increased motivation, emotional variables displayed no significant correlation with TOEFL posttest scores. These findings carry profound implications for TOEFL preparation, student motivation, and the management of classroom diversity in online learning settings.