ExpTrialMng: A Universal Experiment Trial Manager for AR/VR/MR Experiments based on Unity

TL;DR

ExpTrialMng is a Unity-based library that simplifies the development of VR/AR experiments by providing trial management and error handling functions, making immersive research more accessible across disciplines.

Contribution

It introduces a universal Unity library for VR/AR experiments that addresses programming barriers and error management, facilitating broader adoption in research.

Findings

Eases experiment development for non-programmers

Handles unexpected HMD errors during experiments

Supports flexible trial management in VR/AR studies

Abstract

Based on the improvement of recent virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) Head Mounted Display (HMD), there have been attempts to adopt VR and AR in various fields. Since VR and AR could provide more immersive experimental environments and stimuli than 2D settings in a cost-efficient way, psychological and cognitive researchers are particularly interested in using these platforms. However, there is still an entry barrier for researchers who are not familiar with Unity programming, and current VR/AR HMDs could also cause unexpected errors during the experiment. Therefore, we developed a Unity library that can be adopted in various experiments universally and assist researchers in developing their own. Our library provides functions related to trial assignment and results saving. That way, researchers can easily implement the essential functions of their psychological experiments. We also made a function that enables proceeding with the experiment from a specific trial point to handle unexpected errors caused by HMD tracking loss issues during the experiment. We expect our library could invite researchers from various disciplines and help them acquire valuable insights in VR/AR environments.