Chen, H; Dong, Z and Chan, I Y S (2025) Biometric evaluation and immersive construction environments: A research overview of the current landscape, challenges, and future prospects. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 151(7): 03125005, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Immersive technology, a collection of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, has been applied to many aspects of the construction industry. To evaluate immersive technology-related experiments, many evaluation approaches have been proposed, which can be categorized as quantitative-based and qualitative-based. With the advancement of the neuroscience discipline, there is an emerging trend in deploying biometric sensors to evaluate physiological responses when participants are exposed to virtual stimuli in an immersive environment, which can be categorized as biometric-based evaluation. This study aims to review state-of-the-art biometric-based evaluations in a variety of immersive technologies (ImTs) in construction. A total of 43 articles published from 2018 to 2024 are included. The systematic review of selected articles produced five research themes: (1) ImT usability evaluation; (2) learning experience and performance; (3) general construction tasks; (4) human-robot collaboration; and (5) hazard identification and risk perceptions. The summarizations revealed that biometric sensors have been increasingly adopted to understand the psychophysiological and cognitive process when exposed to a stimulus in ImT environments without physically exposing workers to danger. This study also summarized limitations and future directions in four aspects, including ImT development, biometric deployment, biometric-based ImT development, and application potentials in the construction industry. The obtained knowledge is expected to benefit the researchers from an overview of the applications of using biometric sensors in immersive environments and promote the integration of biometric and immersive technology in the construction industry.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | biometric; construction; immersive technologies; psychophysiological; virtual reality |
| Index terms: | learning experience, augmented reality, integration, hazard identification, collaboration, virtual reality, risk perception, construction industry, immersive technology, systematic literature review, experiment, usability, state of the art |
| Subjects: | user-centered design, organizational analysis, industry analysis, research evaluation and metrics, research dissemination and communication, financial risk, data collection methods, environmental hazards, management, learning methods, virtual reality, visualization |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Sustainability, Digital Applications, Education, Organizational Design, Cost Management, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 CTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here