What Prevents Us From Learning Virtual Reality Space: A Study of Indoor Corridor Angle and Obstacle Transparency

Abstract

People sometimes become disorientated and feel unnatural in virtual reality (VR) spaces created via devices such as head-mounted displays. The main problem is that multiple structures make it difficult to learn the VR space, particularly indoors. These structures segment the space and form boundaries for sightlines and activity areas. How obstacles in segmented space affect human behavior have been less discussed in studies related to navigation. This study sought to clarify the mechanism for the effect of spatial segmentation effect on human spatial cognition, in the context of indoor navigation. This study was conducted in a VR scenario with an omni-directional treadmill; a total of 76 college students participated, and 52 of them were included in the analysis. The study found that the cognitive distortion from spatial segmentation primarily operates by activity area rather than visual obstruction, and it can be inferred that the basis of human abstraction of spatial information may perhaps be the activity area. Regardless of obstacle transparency, non-rectangular spatial segmentation deteriorates navigational performance. The results suggest that, future metaverse communities should consider designing rectangular segmented activity areas to improve navigation performance and reduce disorientation.

Keywords:

• Virtual reality
• spatial cognition
• indoor navigation
• metaverse

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72171030), the 2022 Reform in College Elite Curriculum Research Project of Chongqing University (CQU-EIE-2022011) and the graduate research and innovation foundation of Chongqing, China (Grant No. CYB23067).

Ethical approval

This research was approved by Ethical Review Statement of the Chongqing University Cancer Hospital. The ethical code is CZLS2023346-A.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data and R code used in the analysis of this paper can be found at https://github.com/YFZHU-2092/A-Study-of-Indoor-Corridor-Angle-and-Obstacle-Transparency

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72171030), the 2022 Reform in College Elite Curriculum Research Project of Chongqing University (CQU-EIE-2022011) and the graduate research and innovation foundation of Chongqing, China (Grant No. CYB23067).

Notes on contributors

Yifan Zhu

Yifan Zhu has been registered as a full-time student in the Master’s degree program in School of Management Science and Real Estate at Chongqing University. His research focuses on human–computer interaction and spatial cognition.

Mingjun Liu

Mingjun Liu has been registered as a full-time student in the Master’s degree program in School of Management Science and Real Estate at Chongqing University. His research focuses on spatial cognition and virtual reality.

Jia Zhou

Jia Zhou is a professor at the School of Management Science and Real Estate at Chongqing University. She is also the co-chair of the International Conference on Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population (ITAP). Her research focuses on IT products and services for older adults.