We report a series of experiments conducted to investigate the effects of travel technique on information gathering and cognition in complex virtual environments. In the first experiment, participants completed a non-branching multilevel 3D maze at their own pace using either real walking or one of two virtual travel techniques. In the second experiment, we constructed a real-world maze with branching pathways and modeled an identical virtual environment. Participants explored either the real or virtual maze for a predetermined amount of time using real walking or a virtual travel technique. Our results across experiments suggest that for complex environments requiring a large number of turns, virtual travel is an acceptable substitute for real walking if the goal of the application involves learning or reasoning based on information presented in the virtual world. However, for applications that require fast, efficient navigation or travel that closely resembles real-world behavior, real walking has advantages over common joystick-based virtual travel techniques.
We report on a study in which we investigate the effects of travel technique on simulator sickness in a real and virtual environment. Participants explored either a real maze or a virtual maze using either natural walking or simulated walking. Reported scores for measures of overall simulator sickness, disorientation, nausea, and occulomotor discomfort were all higher in the natural walking condition than either the simulated walking or real world conditions. This indicates that simulated walking is a better choice for reducing simulator sickness during tasks requiring a navigationally complex environment and a long amount of time.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.