Three levels of metric for evaluating wayfinding

Three levels of virtual environment (VE) metric are proposed, based on: (1) users’ task performance (time taken, distance traveled and number of errors made), (2) physical behavior (locomotion, looking around, and time and error classification), and (3) decision making (i.e., cognitive) rationale (think aloud, interview and questionnaire). Examples of the use of these metrics are drawn from a detailed review of research into VE wayfinding. A case study from research into the fidelity that is required for efficient VE wayfinding is presented, showing the unsuitability in some circumstances of common metrics of task performance such as time and distance, and the benefits to be gained by making fine-grained analyses of users’ behavior. Taken as a whole, the article highlights the range of techniques that have been successfully used to evaluate wayfinding and explains in detail how some of these techniques may be applied

Wayfinding and Glaucoma: A Virtual Reality Experiment.

PurposeWayfinding, the process of determining and following a route between an origin and a destination, is an integral part of everyday tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of glaucomatous visual field loss on wayfinding behavior using an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 31 glaucomatous patients and 20 healthy subjects without evidence of overall cognitive impairment. Wayfinding experiments were modeled after the Morris water maze navigation task and conducted in an immersive VR environment. Two rooms were built varying only in the complexity of the visual scene in order to promote allocentric-based (room A, with multiple visual cues) versus egocentric-based (room B, with single visual cue) spatial representations of the environment. Wayfinding tasks in each room consisted of revisiting previously visible targets that subsequently became invisible.ResultsFor room A, glaucoma patients spent on average 35.0 seconds to perform the wayfinding task, whereas healthy subjects spent an average of 24.4 seconds (P = 0.001). For room B, no statistically significant difference was seen on average time to complete the task (26.2 seconds versus 23.4 seconds, respectively; P = 0.514). For room A, each 1-dB worse binocular mean sensitivity was associated with 3.4% (P = 0.001) increase in time to complete the task.ConclusionsGlaucoma patients performed significantly worse on allocentric-based wayfinding tasks conducted in a VR environment, suggesting visual field loss may affect the construction of spatial cognitive maps relevant to successful wayfinding. VR environments may represent a useful approach for assessing functional vision endpoints for clinical trials of emerging therapies in ophthalmology

Navigation Comparison between a Real and a Virtual Museum: Time-dependent Differences using a Head Mounted Display

[EN] The validity of environmental simulations depends on their capacity to replicate responses produced in physical environments. However, very few studies validate navigation differences in immersive virtual environments, even though these can radically condition space perception and therefore alter the various evoked responses. The objective of this paper is to validate environmental simulations using 3D environments and head-mounted display devices, at behavioural level through navigation. A comparison is undertaken between the free exploration of an art exhibition in a physical museum and a simulation of the same experience. As a first perception validation, the virtual museum shows a high degree of presence. Movement patterns in both `museums¿ show close similarities, and present significant differences at the beginning of the exploration in terms of the percentage of area explored and the time taken to undertake the tours. Therefore, the results show there are significant time-dependent differences in navigation patterns during the first 2 minutes of the tours. Subsequently, there are no significant differences in navigation in physical and virtual museums. These findings support the use of immersive virtual environments as empirical tools in human behavioural research at navigation level.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España (Project TIN2013-45736-R); Dirección General de Tráfico, Ministerio del Interior de España (Project SPIP2017-02220); and the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern.Marín-Morales, J.; Higuera-Trujillo, JL.; Juan-Ripoll, CD.; Llinares Millán, MDC.; Guixeres Provinciale, J.; Iñarra Abad, S.; Alcañiz Raya, ML. (2019). Navigation Comparison between a Real and a Virtual Museum: Time-dependent Differences using a Head Mounted Display. Interacting with Computers. 31(2):208-220. https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwz018S20822031