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Purpose: Given the growing popularity of virtual human resources development (VHRD) in organizations and among human resource development (HRD) professionals, it is highly essential to deeply examine the nature and scope of the affective dimensions of the VHRD approach. Over the past decade, VHRD has become an important part of the HRD process. Design/methodology/approach: The present study used an integrative literature review to investigate the nature of VHRD in the literature, present a descriptive analysis of the literature and categorize the existing VHRD research. Findings: The results indicated three major themes, namely, VHRD and socialization, VHRD and learning and VHRD and the psychological characteristics of the work environment. In addition, a new conceptual model was developed based on the findings. Research limitations/implications: This study has reviewed the main concepts of VHRD. The potential actions which HRD researchers can take to address the identified challenges are discussed. Originality/value: This integrative literature review could provide a roadmap for future research. Based on this model, the VHRD position is within the organizational context and different tools and processes in constant interaction are introduced. Finally, a general view of the VHRD approach was provided, which can help human resources experts deal with a wide range of technologies in the organization.

Virtual Reality (VR) applications involve the use of manipulators or 'virtual tools' such as pointers, grippers and containers. Manipulation of such tools is a key feature of VR applications. Less attention has been directed towards designing the ways in which users select particular options or information, as they interact in the virtual world, by means of selectors. This is particularly important in the case of professional users, such as surgeons, who typically make heavy use of both selection and manipulation, switching frequently between the two in the course of their work. In this paper we describe the design and evaluation of two types of selector tool for use in medical VR applications. In this account, we provide details of the background behind the research and focus on design aspects of selector tools for use in a particular task context, that of medical surgery planning. Keywords: Virtual Reality, menus, medicine

\nContribution to the Field Communities are aging and becoming more segregated, leading to fractured relationships between generations. Intergenerational exchange has improved cohesion, particularly when different generations engage as equal partners. This paper presents a systematic review of intergenerational studies between adolescents and older adults. Thirteen papers were reviewed using PRISMA guidelines, and outcomes, methodological quality, facilitators, and barriers identified, to better understand effectiveness and inform recommendations for future practice. The framework informed quality assessment, and the papers were rated moderate or high quality. Unfortunately, heterogeneity across studies rendered comparison challenging. Further attention is required to elucidate guidelines for implementing and reporting intergenerational studies. This review demonstrated how non-familial intergenerational programs involving adolescents and older adults provided benefits to both. Benefits for older adults included improved wellbeing, cognitive, and social engagement. Benefits for adolescents were identity formation and skill development. Shared outcomes for both generations were improved attitudes and stereotypes, reduced generational gap, and solidarity. High variability in program design, methodology, and sample size was evident across studies. However, it highlighted the suitability of IG engagement across differing contexts. Future recommendations included facilitator training, diverse samples, and longitudinal methodological designs. This review demonstrated how non-familial intergenerational programs involving adolescents and older adults provided benefits to both. Benefits for older adults included improved wellbeing, cognitive, and social engagement.Benefits for adolescents were identity formation and skill development. Shared outcomes for both generations were improved attitudes and stereotypes, reduced generational gap, and solidarity.High variability in program design, methodology, and sample size was evident across studies. However, it highlighted the suitability of IG engagement across differing contexts.Future recommendations included facilitator training, diverse samples, and longitudinal methodological designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about social Networking is organizing a special issue dedicated to the applications, limitations and future potential of different varieties of digital travel. Topics include COVID-19 reduced the feasibility and attractiveness of travel for a great many people in all age groups; and Travel has a serious negative impact on the environment, the deterioration of which is seen as an increasingly urgent problem.

This randomized controlled study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02007616) investigated the maintenance of training effects of 20 1-hr non-action video game training sessions with selected games from a commercial package on several age-declining cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing after a 3-month no-contact period. Two groups of cognitively normal older adults participated in both the post-training (posttest) and the present follow-up study, the experimental group who received training and the control group who attended several meetings with the research team during the study but did not receive training. Groups were similar at baseline on demographics, vocabulary, global cognition, and depression status. Significant improvements in the trained group, and no variation in the control group had been previously found at posttest, in processing speed, attention and visual recognition memory, as well as in two dimensions of subjective wellbeing. In the current study, improvement from baseline to 3 months follow-up was found only in wellbeing (Affection and Assertivity dimensions) in the trained group whereas there was no change in the control group. Previous significant improvements in processing speed, attention and spatial memory become non-significant after the 3-month interval. Training older adults with non-action video games enhanced aspects of cognition just after training but this effect disappeared after a 3-month no-contact follow-up period. Cognitive plasticity can be induced in older adults by training, but to maintain the benefits periodic boosting sessions would be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-related cognitive and brain declines can result in functional deterioration in many cognitive domains, dependency, and dementia. A major goal of aging research is to investigate methods that help to maintain brain health, cognition, independent living and wellbeing in older adults. This randomized controlled study investigated the effects of 20 1-h non-action video game training sessions with games selected from a commercially available package (Lumosity) on a series of age-declined cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing. Two groups of healthy older adults participated in the study, the experimental group who received the training and the control group who attended three meetings with the research team along the study. Groups were similar at baseline on demographics, vocabulary, global cognition, and depression status. All participants were assessed individually before and after the intervention, or a similar period of time, using neuropsychological tests and laboratory tasks to investigate possible transfer effects. The results showed significant improvements in the trained group, and no variation in the control group, in processing speed (choice reaction time), attention (reduction of distraction and increase of alertness), immediate and delayed visual recognition memory, as well as a trend to improve in Affection and Assertivity, two dimensions of theWellbeing Scale. Visuospatial working memory (WM) and executive control (shifting strategy) did not improve. Overall, the current results support the idea that training healthy older adults with non-action video games will enhance some cognitive abilities but not others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western societies are confronted with a number of challenges caused by the increasing number of older citizens. One important aspect is the need and wish of older people to live as long as possible in their own home and maintain an independent life. As people grew older, their social networks disperse, with friends and families moving to other parts of town, other cities or even countries. Additionally, people become less mobile with age, leading to less active participation in societal life. Combined, this normal, age-related development leads to increased loneliness and social isolation of older people, with negative effects on mental and physical health of those people. In the AGNES project, a home-based system has been developed that allows connecting elderly with their families, friends and other significant people over the Internet. As most older people have limited experience with computers and often special requirements on technology, one focus of AGNES was to develop with the users novel technological means for interacting with their social network. The resulting system uses ambient displays, tangible interfaces and wearable devices providing ubiquitous options for interaction with the network, and secondary sensors for additionally generating carefully chosen information on the person to be relayed to significant persons. Evaluations show that the chosen modalities for interaction are well adopted by the users. Further it was found that use of the AGNES system had positive effects on the mental state of the users, compared to the control group without the technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the application of the repertory grid technique (RGT) as a tool for capturing the user experience of technological artifacts. In noting the artificiality of assessing the emotional impact of interactive artifacts in isolation from cognitive judgments, we argue that HCI techniques must provide practical solutions regarding how to assess the holistic meaning of users' interactive experiences. RGT is a candidate for this role. This paper takes the reader step by step through setting up, conducting, and analyzing a RGT study. RGT is a technique on the border between qualitative and quantitative research, unique in that it respects the wholeness of cognition and does not separate the intellectual from the emotional aspects of the user experience. Compared to existing methods in HCI, RGT has the advantage of treating experiences holistically, while also providing a degree of quantitative precision and generalizability in their capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the sense of presence which tells the extent to which human takes conscious attention on the outside world rather than the internal world of thoughts and imagination. It states that the sense of presence has gained interest through the years due to the use of interactive virtual reality environments. Furthermore, it mentions that the sense of presence was made by evolution for organisms to know when they are attending to things that might affect their survival.

Blended Reality Space is our term for an interactive mixed-reality environment where the physical and the virtual are intimately combined in the service of interaction goals and communication environments aimed at health support and rehabilitation. The present study examines the effect on rated presence and self-presence of three key factors in the way blended realities may be implemented for these purposes. Our findings emphasize the importance of tangibility for presence, but suggest that presence and self-presence are unrelated phenomena. These findings will be incorporated into design principles for our planned work to develop free movement-based interactions for motor rehabilitation as well as blended-reality spaces for collaboration between hospitals, care organizations, and the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a bio-cultural theory of presence based on four different positions related to the role and structure of presence, as follows. First, presence is a defining feature of self and it is related to the evolution of a key feature of any central nervous system: the embedding of sensory-referred properties into an internal functional space. Without the emergence of the sense of presence it is impossible for the nervous system to experience distal attribution: the referencing of our perception to an external space beyond the limits of the sensory organs themselves. Second, even if the experience of the sense of presence is a unitary feeling, conceptually it can be divided in three different layers, phylogenetically different and strictly related to the three levels of self identified by Damasio. In particular we can make conceptual distinctions between proto presence (self vs. non self), core presence (self vs. present external world), and extended presence (self relative to present external world). Third, given that each layer of presence solves a particular facet of the internal/external world separation, it is characterized by specific properties. Finally, in humans the sense of presence is a direct function of these three layers: the more they are integrated, the more we are present. In the experience of optimal presence, biologically and culturally determined cognitive processes are working in harmony—to focus all levels of the self on a significant situation in the external world, whether this is real or virtual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model of virtual/physical experience is presented, which provides a three dimensional conceptual space for virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) comprising the dimensions of focus, locus, and sensus. Focus is most closely related to what is generally termed presence in the VR literature. When in a virtual environment, presence is typically shared between the VR and the physical world. "Breaks in presence" are actually shifts of presence away from the VR and toward the external environment. But we can also have "breaks in presence" when attention moves toward absence - when an observer is not attending to stimuli present in the virtual environment, nor to stimuli present in the surrounding physical environment - when the observer is present in neither the virtual nor the physical world. We thus have two dimensions of presence: focus of attention (between presence and absence) and the locus of attention (the virtual vs. the physical world). A third dimension is the sensus of attention - the level of arousal determining whether the observer is highly conscious or relatively unconscious while interacting with the environment. After expanding on each of these three dimensions of experience in relation to VR, we present a couple of educational examples as illustrations, and also relate our model to a suggested spectrum of evaluation methods for virtual environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ELF@Home project is a research and innovation project running from June 1st 2013 to May 31st 2016 and co-funded by the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) and National Authorities in Spain, Sweden and Germany. The ELF@Home project relies on the use of the proven advantages of elderly fitness to develop a self-care solution based on self-check of health conditions and self-fitness at home. The project uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to build an autonomous fitness system targeting healthy or pre-frail elderly people aged over 65 and living independently at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ELF@Home project is a research and innovation project running from June 1 st 2013 to May 31 st 2016 and co-funded by the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) and National Authorities in Spain, Sweden and Germany. The ELF@Home project relies on the use of the proven advantages of elderly fitness to develop a self-care solution based on self-check of health conditions and self-fitness at home. The project uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to build an autonomous fitness system targeting healthy or pre-frail elderly people aged over 65 and living independently at home.

Blended Reality Space is our term for an interactive mixed-reality environment where the physical and the virtual are intimately combined in the service of interaction goals and communication environments aimed at health support and rehabilitation. The present study examines the effect on rated presence and self-presence of three key factors in the way blended realities may be implemented for these purposes. Our findings emphasize the importance of tangibility for presence, but suggest that presence and self-presence are unrelated phenomena. These findings will be incorporated into design principles for our planned work to develop free movement-based interactions for motor rehabilitation as well as blended-reality spaces for collaboration between hospitals, care organizations, and the home.

The current experiment was carried out to extend our knowledge about the relative importance of stereoscopic display and hand-image collocation for dextrous interaction. We devised a new task, the Volumetric Dexterity Test (VDT), which quite accurately duplicates the way professional personnel such as surgeons and radiologists interact with detailed medical data in a VR environment. Our results were surprising. Stereo vision was very important to both accuracy and speed of task completion, as we found previously. But the presence of hand-image collocation did not improve accuracy, despite the fact that this was a truly three-dimensional task. If this finding is borne out it has important implications for the volumetric presentation of medical data to individual practitioners and in group settings.