Orientation in Virtual Reality Does Not Fully Measure Up to the Real-World

Abstract

Adult participants learned to reorient to a specific corner inside either a real or virtual rectangular room containing a distinct featural object in each corner. Participants in the virtual-reality (VR) condition experienced an immersive virtual version of the physical room using a head-mounted display (HMD) and customized manual wheelchair to provide self-movement. Following a disorientation procedure, people could reorient by using either the geometry of the room and/or the distinct features in the corners. Test trials in which the different spatial cues were manipulated revealed participants encoded features and geometry in both the real and VR rooms. However, participants in the VR room showed less facility with using geometry. Our results suggest caution must be taken when interpreting the nuances of spatial cue use in virtual environments. Reduced reliability of geometric cues in VR environments may result in greater reliance on feature cues than would normally be expected under similar real-world conditions.

Effect of Spatial Disorientation in a Virtual Environment on Gait and Vital Features in Patients with Dementia: Pilot Single-Blind Randomized Control Trial

“…The combined usage of a fully instrumented treadmill, wearable sensors, and an adequately immersive VR system to investigate real-time disorientation among older participants and patients with dementia during active navigation is, to the best of our knowledge, unprecedented. Previous studies that investigated spatial orientation [ 38 - 40 ] and navigation memory [ 20 , 41 ] have relied mostly on VR systems in which navigation or interaction with the VR environment was passively based on the use of control objects (eg, joystick, mouse). This, however, further limits the ecological validity of such setups, as the locomotion aspect of real-world navigation was apparently lacking.…”

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) for Route Reversal Learning

“…The analysis of the erroneous turns supports better knowledge transfer from the RE to the VE as well. Spatial knowledge acquisition in the RE may differ from that in the VE; this may explain the difference of the knowledge transfer [27]. To show such results with statistical rigor, a larger data sample is needed.…”

The potential of virtual reality for spatial navigation research across the adult lifespan

“…For example, it has recently been shown that participants rely more on distinct features (i.e. landmarks) than on the geometrical layout when asked to reorient themselves in a virtual room using an HMD in combination with a manual wheelchair as compared with navigation in a real room (Kimura et al, 2017).…”