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Redirected walking techniques use rotational gains to guide users away from physical obstacles as they walk in a virtual world, effectively creating the illusion of a larger virtual space than is physically present. Designers often want to keep users unaware of this manipulation, which is made possible by limitations in human perception that render rotational gains imperceptible below a certain threshold. Many aspects of these thresholds have been studied, however no research has yet considered whether these thresholds may change over time as users gain more experience with them. To study this, we recruited 20 novice VR users (no more than 1 hour of prior experience with an HMD) and provided them with an Oculus Quest to use for four weeks on their own time. They were tasked to complete an activity assessing their sensitivity to rotational gain once each week, in addition to whatever other activities they wanted to perform. No feedback was provided to participants about their performance during each activity, minimizing the possibility of learning effects accounting for any observed changes over time. We observed that participants became significantly more sensitive to rotation gains over time, underscoring the importance of considering prior user experience in applications involving rotational gain, as well as how prior user experience may affect other, broader applications of VR. 

This work explored how users’ sensitivity to offsets in their avatars’ virtual hands changes as they gain exposure to virtual reality. We conducted an experiment using a two-alternative forced choice (2-AFC) design over the course of four weeks, split into four sessions. The trials in each session had a variety of eight offset distances paired with eight offset directions (across a 2D plane). While we did not find evidence that users became more sensitive to the offsets over time, we did find evidence of behavioral changes. Specifically, participants’ head-hand coordination and completion time varied significantly as the sessions went on. We discuss the implications of both results and how they could influence our understanding of long-term calibration for perception-action coordination in virtual environments.