l Effects of Travel Technique on Cognition in VEs

     The purpose of this project was to investigate

how four different methods of travel in an

immersive virtual environment compared with

each other based on their effect on cognition.

Visualizations were created to examine the paths

taken throughout the environment, shown left,

and the areas most frequently traveled shown

below.

We compared four different methods of travel in an immersive virtual environment and their effect on cognition using a between-subjects experimental design. The four methods were natural walking or real walking, virtual walking with 6 dof tracking, virtual walking with 3 dof tracking, and monitor with joystick conditions. The task was to answer a set of questions based on Crook’s condensation of Bloom’s taxonomy to assess the participants’ cognition of a virtual room with respect to knowledge, understanding and application, and higher mental processes. Participants were also asked to draw a sketch map of the testing virtual environment and the objects within it. Users’ sense of presence was measured using the Steed-Usoh-Slater Presence Questionnaire.

Our results suggest that for applications where problem solving and interpretation of material is important, or where opportunity to train is minimal, then having a large tracked space so that the participant can physically walk around the virtual environment provides benefits over common virtual travel techniques.

People:

Catherine Zanbaka, Ph.D. Student

Benjamin Lok, Post Doctoral Fellow, now at the University of Florida

Sabarish Babu, Ph.D. Student

Amy Ulinski, Ph.D. Student

Dan Xiao, MS Student

Larry F. Hodges, Professor

Papers: (click for pdf)

Zanbaka, C., Lok, B., Babu, S. Xiao, D., Ulinski, A, and Hodges L.F. (2005). “Comparison of Path Visualizations and Cognitive Measures relative to Travel Technique in a Virtual Environment.” In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

Zanbaka, C., Lok, B., Babu, S., Xiao, D., Ulinski, A., Hodges, L.F. (2004). Effects of travel technique on cognition in virtual environments. Accepted to IEEE Virtual Reality 2004 (March 27-31, Chicago, IL USA).