The Influence of Whole-Body Interaction on Wayfinding in Virtual Reality
by Barry Peterson

Chapter 1
Introduction

Virtual interface technology makes it possible to explore spaces without actually being in them. A variety of applications have been proposed. They all assume that the virtual reality (VR) experience can produce an awareness of the target space. However, the experience in the virtual space is certainly not identical to the experience in the actual space. Humans are spatial beings, and in the real-world we rely on an abundance of multiple modalities for everyday task performance; in virtual reality, the technology may limit the quantity and quality of these key stimuli. Therefore, researchers should actively seek the necessary understanding of human performance in virtual environments in order to create robust design guidelines that will allow us to make use of the technology in its current state of maturity.

Wayfinding in the real world requires both maneuvering and navigation components. Maneuvering engages the motor skills involved with positioning oneself at a desired location. Navigation is more cognitive, involving the skills associated with landmark recognition, route memorization and the development and maintenance of one’s sense of direction in the world. When performed in a synthetic, computer-mediated environment, such as VR, wayfinding becomes more complicated due to the influence of two interface-related factors. First, the visual stimuli presented may be greatly impoverished (e.g. low-resolution, small quantity of objects, latency, narrower field of view), and second, since the human must communicate intentions to the computer through artifacts of the interface, maneuvering may be less natural and require more conscious control than does normal locomotion.

In this thesis I investigate how the input and output properties of the interface interact to influence one’s wayfinding performance. It is my hypothesis that, if the interface accepts human inputs that naturally involve kinesthetic and vestibular modalities, then spatial awareness will be improved, leading to better wayfinding performance. Such improvements will be particularly evident when the tasks are spatially complex and the environment provides a limited set of visual cues for navigation.

In the following sections, I review the relevant literature. Following the review, I will discuss the experiment by first describing one prototypical wayfinding interface and then detailing the experiment itself. Next, I will present the results of the experiment and a general discussion of my findings. Finally, I will conclude with a summary and a proposal for extending this line of research.