Distance Underestimation in Virtual Space Is Sensitive to Gender But Not Activity-Passivity or Mode of Interaction

Abstract

Four groups of undergraduates (half of each gender) experienced a movement along a corridor containing three distinctive objects, in a virtual environment (VE) with wide-screen projection. One group simulated walking along the virtual corridor using a proprietary step-exercise device. A second group moved along the corridor in conventional flying mode, depressing a keyboard key to initiate continuous forward motion. Two further groups observed the walking and flying participants, by viewing their progress on the screen. Participants then had to walk along a real equivalent but empty corridor, and indicate the positions of the three objects. All groups underestimated distances in the real corridor, the greatest underestimates occurring for the middle distance object. Males' underestimations were significantly lower than females' at all distances. However, there was no difference between the active participants and passive observers, nor between walking and flying conditions.

From maps to navigation: The role of cues in finding locations in a virtual environment

“…Because participants navigated from the center of the arena, this resulted in severe negative radial bias for both targets. These results are consistent with the underestimation of distance noted in VE distance estimation previously, with underestimation increasing with increased distance (Foreman et al, 2004;Hutcheson & Wedell, 2009). …”

“…While both short-and long-radius targets were underestimated, underestimation was significantly greater for the long-radius targets (M 0 −180.64) than for the short-radius targets (M 0 −107.36), which were closer to the central starting point for navigation. These results are consistent with underestimation of distances in VE environments (Foreman, Sandamas, & Newson, 2004;Hutcheson & Wedell, 2009) and appear to have a similar form in that the further the actual distance, the greater the underestimation.…”

“…These effects were largely unrelated to cues but, rather, were tied to how distance estimation depends on the encoding and retrieval environments. Following the pattern found in prior research (Foreman et al, 2004;Hutcheson & Wedell, 2009), the magnitude of underestimation in navigation increased with increased distance. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the gross underestimation of distance in the VE environment did not generalize to the recall on the map, the original encoding environment.…”

“…Experiment 1 also demonstrated effects on radial bias consistent with the idea that distances are underestimated when navigating in a VE (Foreman et al, 2004;Hutcheson & Wedell, 2009;Witmer & Sadowski, 1998). In Experiment 1, the starting point was always the center of the arena, so underestimation would result in negative bias.…”

How users interact with a 3D geo-browser under time pressure

“…While studies on visual object recognition (Harman et al 1999;James et al 2002), or on the acquisition of spatial knowledge in a virtual environment (Peruch et al, 1995) have found significant advantages to providing interactivity to users, other studies were not able to detect any benefits of interactivity for navigating in desktop and virtual environments (Foreman et al 2004;Melanson et al 2002). There are even examples of studies showing that participants who were searching for structure in 3D data performed worse when provided with possibilities to interact (Marchak and Zulager 1992).…”