Effects of Head-Slaved Navigation and the Use of Teleports on Spatial Orientation in Virtual Environments

Abstract

The type of navigation interface in a virtual environment (VE)--head slaved or indirect--determines whether or not proprioceptive feedback stimuli are present during movement. In addition, teleports can be used, which do not provide continuous movement but, rather, discontinuously displace the viewpoint over large distances. A two-part experiment was performed. The first part investigated whether head-slaved navigation provides an advantage for spatial learning in a VE. The second part investigated the role of anticipation when using teleports. The results showed that head-slaved navigation has an advantage over indirect navigation for the acquisition of spatial knowledge in a VE. Anticipating the destination of the teleport prevented disorientation after the displacement to a great extent but not completely. The time that was needed for anticipation increased if the teleport involved a rotation of the viewing direction. This research shows the potential added value of using a head-slaved navigation interface--for example, when using VE for training purposes--and provides practical guidelines for the use of teleports in VE applications.

Teleportation in Virtual Reality; A Mini-Review

“…On the other hand, compared to continuous viewpoint transition, instant viewpoint transition (teleportation) was found to cause more spatial disorientation. Bakker et al (2003) Compared teleportation with and without anticipation. They found that anticipation to an extent helped avoiding disorientation resulting from teleportation.…”

Navigating virtual mazes: The benefits of audiovisual landmarks

“…Virtual environments can be more complex than natural environments with respect to their scale [4,2], structural complexity and dimensionality [5]. Furthermore, virtual environments often differ from natural environments with respect to the sensory modalities involved, depending on the use of visual, auditory and vestibular displays [6,7,8,9,10,11] and interaction methods [8]. Thus, an optimal support of human spatial navigation in virtual environments relies on knowing the effects of involving multiple sensory modalities.…”

Augmenting Teleportation in Virtual Reality With Discrete Rotation Angles

“…While some variants of teleportation limit the users to fixed teleportation destinations (i.e., fix-point teleportation), studies have shown that free teleportation leads to a lower discomfort [13]. Although teleportation can lead to disorientation [2,6], it was subjectively preferred over joystick input in a study by Langbehn et al in 2018 [17].…”