Virtual reality is a powerful tool for teaching 3D digital technologies in building engineering, as it facilitates the spatial perception of three-dimensional space. Spatial orientation skill is necessary for understanding 3D space. With VR, users navigate through virtually designed buildings and must be constantly aware of their position relative to other elements of the environment (orientation during navigation). In the present study, 25 building engineering students performed navigation tasks in a desktop-VR environment workshop. Performance of students using the desktop-VR was compared to a previous workshop in which navigation tasks were carried out using head-mounted displays. The Perspective Taking/Spatial Orientation Test measured spatial orientation skill. A questionnaire on user experience in the virtual environment was also administered. The gain in spatial orientation skill was 12.62%, similar to that obtained with head-mounted displays (14.23%). The desktop VR environment is an alternative to the HMD-VR environment for planning strategies to improve spatial orientation. Results from the user-experience questionnaire showed that the desktop VR environment strategy was well perceived by students in terms of interaction, 3D visualization, navigation, and sense of presence. Unlike in the HDM VR environment, student in the desktop VR environment did not report feelings of fatigue or dizziness.
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A new psychometric task measuring spatial perspective taking in ambulatory virtual reality
Spatial perspective taking is an essential cognitive ability that enables people to imagine how an object or scene would appear from a perspective different from their current physical viewpoint. This process is fundamental for successful navigation, especially when people utilize navigational aids (e.g., maps) and the information provided is shown from a different perspective. Research on spatial perspective taking is primarily conducted using paper-pencil tasks or computerized figural tasks. However, in daily life, navigation takes place in a three-dimensional (3D) space and involves movement of human bodies through space, and people need to map the perspective indicated by a 2D, top down, external representation to their current 3D surroundings to guide their movements to goal locations. In this study, we developed an immersive viewpoint transformation task (iVTT) using ambulatory virtual reality (VR) technology. In the iVTT, people physically walked to a goal location in a virtual environment, using a first-person perspective, after viewing a map of the same environment from a top-down perspective. Comparing this task with a computerized version of a popular paper-and-pencil perspective taking task (SOT: Spatial Orientation Task), the results indicated that the SOT is highly correlated with angle production error but not distance error in the iVTT. Overall angular error in the iVTT was higher than in the SOT. People utilized intrinsic body axes (front/back axis or left/right axis) similarly in the SOT and the iVTT, although there were some minor differences. These results suggest that the SOT and the iVTT capture common variance and cognitive processes, but are also subject to unique sources of error caused by different cognitive processes. The iVTT provides a new immersive VR paradigm to study perspective taking ability in a space encompassing human bodies, and advances our understanding of perspective taking in the real world.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2024633
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10465603
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Virtual Reality
- Volume:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 2673-4192
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Research on spatial thinking requires reliable and valid measures of individual differences in various component skills. Spatial perspective taking (PT)-the ability to represent viewpoints different from one's own-is one kind of spatial skill that is especially relevant to navigation. This study had two goals. First, the psychometric properties of four PT tests were examined: Four Mountains Task (FMT), Spatial Orientation Task (SOT), Perspective-Taking Task for Adults (PTT-A), and Photographic Perspective-Taking Task (PPTT). Using item response theory (IRT), item difficulty, discriminability, and efficiency of item information functions were evaluated. Second, the relation of PT scores to general intelligence, working memory, and mental rotation (MR) was assessed. All tasks showed good construct validity except for FMT. PPTT tapped a wide range of PT ability, with maximum measurement precision at average ability. PTT-A captured a lower range of ability. Although SOT contributed less measurement information than other tasks, it did well across a wide range of PT ability. After controlling for general intelligence and working memory, original and IRT-refined versions of PT tasks were each related to MR. PTT-A and PPTT showed relatively more divergent validity from MR than SOT. Tests of dimensionality indicated that PT tasks share one common PT dimension, with secondary task-specific factors also impacting the measurement of individual differences in performance. Advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid PT test that includes a combination of items across tasks are discussed.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Objective Evaluate and model the advantage of a situation awareness (SA) supported by an augmented reality (AR) display for the ground-based joint terminal attack Controller (JTAC), in judging and describing the spatial relations between objects in a hostile zone. Background The accurate world-referenced description of relative locations of surface objects, when viewed from an oblique slant angle (aircraft, observation post) is hindered by (1) the compression of the visual scene, amplified at a lower slang angle, (2) the need for mental rotation, when viewed from a non-northerly orientation. Approach Participants viewed a virtual reality (VR)-simulated four-object scene from either of two slant angles, at each of four compass orientations, either unaided, or aided by an AR head-mounted display (AR-HMD), depicting the scene from a top-down (avoiding compression) and north-up (avoiding mental rotation) perspective. They described the geographical layout of four objects within the display. Results Compared with the control condition, that condition supported by the north-up SA display shortened the description time, particularly on non-northerly orientations (9 s, 30% benefit), and improved the accuracy of description, particularly for the more compressed scene (lower slant angle), as fit by a simple computational model. Conclusion The SA display provides large, significant benefits to this critical phase of ground-air communications in managing an attack—as predicted by the task analysis of the JTAC. Application Results impact the design of the AR-HMD to support combat ground-air communications and illustrate the magnitude by which basic cognitive principles “scale up” to realistically simulated real-world tasks such as search and rescue.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.971502
