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Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry

Apart from improving husbandry conditions and animal welfare, there is a clear public demand to increase transparency in agricultural activities. Personal farm tours have shown to be appreciated by citizens but are limited in their impact because of hygiene requirements and accessibility. Virtual fa...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Schütz, Aurelia, Kurz, Katharina, Busch, Gesa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8746731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35007299
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261248
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author Schütz, Aurelia
Kurz, Katharina
Busch, Gesa
author_facet Schütz, Aurelia
Kurz, Katharina
Busch, Gesa
author_sort Schütz, Aurelia
collection PubMed
description Apart from improving husbandry conditions and animal welfare, there is a clear public demand to increase transparency in agricultural activities. Personal farm tours have shown to be appreciated by citizens but are limited in their impact because of hygiene requirements and accessibility. Virtual farm tours are a promising approach to overcome these limitations but evidence on their perceptions is missing. This study analyzes how a virtual farm tour is perceived by showing participants (n = 17) a 360-degree video of a conventional pig fattening pen on a tablet and via virtual reality (VR) glasses. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to analyze perceptions and level of immersion and to elicit differences between media devices. Participants’ perception of the pig fattening pen was rather poor and depended on the recording perspective as well as on the media device. However, housing conditions were perceived more positively compared to the image participants had in mind prior to the study, and thus the stable was considered as a rather positive example. Participants described virtual farm tours as suitable tool to improve transparency and information transfer and to gain insights into husbandry conditions. They appreciated the comfortable and entertaining character of both media devices and named various possibilities for implementation. However, VR glasses were favored regarding the higher realistic and entertaining value, while the tablet was considered beneficial in terms of usability. The presentation of video sequences without additional explanations about the farm or the housing conditions were claimed insufficient to give an adequate understanding of the seen content.
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spelling pubmed-87467312022-01-11 Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry Schütz, Aurelia Kurz, Katharina Busch, Gesa PLoS One Research Article Apart from improving husbandry conditions and animal welfare, there is a clear public demand to increase transparency in agricultural activities. Personal farm tours have shown to be appreciated by citizens but are limited in their impact because of hygiene requirements and accessibility. Virtual farm tours are a promising approach to overcome these limitations but evidence on their perceptions is missing. This study analyzes how a virtual farm tour is perceived by showing participants (n = 17) a 360-degree video of a conventional pig fattening pen on a tablet and via virtual reality (VR) glasses. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to analyze perceptions and level of immersion and to elicit differences between media devices. Participants’ perception of the pig fattening pen was rather poor and depended on the recording perspective as well as on the media device. However, housing conditions were perceived more positively compared to the image participants had in mind prior to the study, and thus the stable was considered as a rather positive example. Participants described virtual farm tours as suitable tool to improve transparency and information transfer and to gain insights into husbandry conditions. They appreciated the comfortable and entertaining character of both media devices and named various possibilities for implementation. However, VR glasses were favored regarding the higher realistic and entertaining value, while the tablet was considered beneficial in terms of usability. The presentation of video sequences without additional explanations about the farm or the housing conditions were claimed insufficient to give an adequate understanding of the seen content. Public Library of Science 2022-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8746731/ /pubmed/35007299 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261248 Text en © 2022 Schütz et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Schütz, Aurelia
Kurz, Katharina
Busch, Gesa
Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
title Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
title_full Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
title_fullStr Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
title_full_unstemmed Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
title_short Virtual farm tours—Virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
title_sort virtual farm tours—virtual reality glasses and tablets are suitable tools to provide insights into pig husbandry
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8746731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35007299
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261248
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