Individual Differences in Virtual Environments

This paper summarises the results of several studies of individual differences among users navigating in virtual environments.These differences relate to performance of navigational tasks, and the degree of sense of presence experienced by the users. The individual differences addressed in this paper refer primarily to personality and demographic factors. The possibility of improving the design of virtual environments for a better accommodation of these differences is discussed

Individual differences in teleporting through virtual environments: A latent profile analysis

Teleportation in virtual reality (VR) affords the ability to explore beyond the physical space. Previous work has demonstrated that this interface comes at a spatial cognitive cost – though, upon closer inspection, not everyone appears similarly affected. A latent profile analysis identified three groups that significantly differed on spatial updating performance and follow-up analyses showed significant differences in objective measures of spatial ability (e.g., mental rotation and perspective-taking). These results suggest that there are individual differences in domains of spatial cognition that are related to how well a user may keep track of his or her location while teleporting in VR

Individual differences in navigating and experiencing presence in virtual environments

The effort of making Virtual Environments (VEs) more useful and satisfactory to use lie at the core of usability research. Because of their development and widespread accessibility, VEs are being used by an ever-increasing diversity of users, whose individual differences impact on both task performance and level of satisfaction. This aspect raises a major challenge in terms of designing adaptive VEs, suitable not for the average user but for each individual user. One way to address this challenge is through the study of individual differences and their implications, which should lead to new effective ways to accommodate them. Adaptivity reflects the system’s capability to automatically tailor itself to dynamically changing user behaviour. This capability is enabled by a user model, acquired on the basis of identifying the user’s patterns of behaviour. This thesis addresses the issue of studying and accommodating individual differences with the purpose of designing adaptive VEs. The individual differences chosen to be investigated are those that impact particularly on two fundamental aspects underlying each interaction with a VE, namely navigation and sense of presence. Both these aspects are related to the perceived usability of VEs. The impact that a set of factors like empathy, absorption, creative imagination and willingness to be transported within the virtual world has on presence has been investigated and described through a prediction equation. Based on these findings, a set of guidelines has been developed for designing VEs able to accommodate these individual differences in order to support users to experience a higher level of presence. The individual differences related to navigation within VE have been investigated in the light of discriminating between efficient versus inefficient search strategies. Building a user model of navigation affords not only a better understanding of user spatial behaviour, but also supports the development of an adaptive VE which could help low spatial users to improve their navigational skills by teaching them the efficient navigational rules and strategies

Measuring the Affordances of Studying in a Virtual World

There has been much interest at the University of Hertfordshire in the teaching and learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life. The School of Computer Science has established a virtual campus within this system where a broad range of learning and teaching activities take place. These include presenting textual, audio and video learning and teaching materials, delivering virtual lectures, providing simulations and group working areas. Recently there has been a great deal of controversy over such initiatives, for example at my own university lecturers are divided as to the efficacy of such an approach. Some see the initiative as an interesting addition to the range of teaching and learning strategies available, likely to motivate learners. Others see it as a trivial attempt to jump on the latest band wagon, with little pedagogical benefit or justification. My own past research in this area, over several years has related to an estimation of the cognitive load imposed by desktop virtual environments and how this affected learning. Several important variables have been identified in several years of research and their effects measured. In the study presented here, a group of 80 final year computer science students used the Second Life virtual environment in order to support their practical project work. Groups of four learners used the university virtual campus especially modified for this purpose to hold meetings and to manage their software development projects. This study reports on how the group areas were established and used by the learners, the types of activities that took place and the effectiveness of the approach in this context. Quantitative and qualitative research was undertaken and it was found that there were benefits to be had by the use of such virtual environments. Recommendations are made as to the affordances of the Second Life virtual environment for teaching and learning in this context and also discussed are the potential problems inherent in this initiative related to individual differences and the cognitive burden imposed on learners.Peer reviewe

Effects of facemasks and virtual lecture environments on speech recall

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, schools often required that students and faculty wear face masks in the classroom or attend virtual class. The current study focused on the impact of face visibility in the classroom and virtual lectures on students’ recall for spoken information. Traditionally aged college students participated in live and virtual lecture environments with both masked and unmasked speaker stimuli. The researchers hypothesized that scores on a recall post-test for unmasked, individual lectures would be higher than post-test scores for the masked individual lecture or group lecture conditions. However, results revealed no differences between conditions. These findings are significant for determining if students’ learning experience is directly affected by the presence of facemasks in the classroom

ON INTER-REALITY LITERACY: EMOTIONS AS PREDICTORS OF PERFORMANCE IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Virtual worlds, set-up on the Internet, occur as a highly complex form of visual media. They foreshadow future developments, not only in leisure settings, but also in health care and business environments. The interaction between real-life and virtual worlds, i.e., inter-reality, has recently moved to the center of scientific interest (Bainbridge 2007). Particularly, the empirical assessment of the value of virtual embodiment and its outcomes is needed (Schultze 2010). Here, this paper aims to make a contribution. Reviewing prior media theories and corresponding conceptualizations such as presence, immersion, media literacy and emotions, we argue that in inter-reality, individual differences in perceiving and dealing with one’s own and other’s emotions influence an individual\u27s performance. Providing construct operationalizations and model propositions, we suggest testing the theory in the context of competitive and socially interactive virtual worlds

Individual Differences in the Formation of Cognitive Maps Based on Different Environments

Individual differences in the ability to build a mental cognitive map of an unfamiliar environment have been studied using both real-world environments (e.g., Ishikawa & Montello, 2006) and virtual environments (VEs) such as Silcton (Weisberg et al., 2014). The current study investigated whether the accuracy of a person’s cognitive map of their real-world, familiar environment was associated with the cognitive map they formed of an unfamiliar virtual environment in the lab. Forty-nine female undergraduate students provided frequently visited locations in their city of residence and explored the Silcton VE. They then completed direction estimation tasks that assessed the accuracy of their cognitive map of the familiar, real-world locations and the target locations in the novel Silcton VE. Linear regression showed that real-world direction estimation accuracy predicted Silcton direction estimation accuracy, suggesting that the same underlying skills are used for representing familiar environments and building representations of unfamiliar environments

Sex Differences and Cognitive Maps: Studies in the Lab don’t Always Reflect Cognitive Map Accuracy in Everyday Life

The ability to create an accurate mental survey representation, or cognitive map, when moving through an environment varies widely across individuals, and we are still trying to understand the origins of these individual differences. Non-immersive virtual environments used to test for cognitive map accuracy in the laboratory have shown sex differences with a performance advantage for men in some studies but not others. When sex differences are demonstrated, it is unclear whether women’s performance generalizes to familiar and unfamiliar real-world environments. In Experiment 1, 98 participants explored the virtual environment Silcton and afterwards estimated directions between the landmarks in Silcton and arranged landmarks found in Silcton on a map. In addition, they reported frequently visited real-world locations and then estimated directions between them and drew a map of the locations. Men were more accurate on tests of Silcton than women were, although there was no difference between sexes for accuracy with real-world locations. Within sexes, women were more accurate with the real-world locations than Silcton, while men showed the opposite pattern. In Experiment 2, 21 women were tested with Silcton and their familiar real-world locations as in Experiment 1 but were also walked through an unfamiliar real-world area on campus and completed direction estimation and map drawing tests for the new environment. Overall, women were more accurate with the two real-world environments than Silcton, with some evidence that accuracy with the new real-world environment was more accurate than the familiar real-world locations. Overall, women’s ability to create a cognitive map of a virtual environment in the laboratory does not seem to be indicative of their ability to do the same in the real world, and care should be taken when generalizing lab results with virtual environments