Title :
Cognitive Resource Demands of Redirected Walking
Author :
Bruder, Gerd ; Lubas, Paul ; Steinicke, Frank
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Abstract :
Redirected walking allows users to walk through a large-scale immersive virtual environment (IVE) while physically remaining in a reasonably small workspace. Therefore, manipulations are applied to virtual camera motions so that the user´s self-motion in the virtual world differs from movements in the real world. Previous work found that the human perceptual system tolerates a certain amount of inconsistency between proprioceptive, vestibular and visual sensation in IVEs, and even compensates for slight discrepancies with recalibrated motor commands. Experiments showed that users are not able to detect an inconsistency if their physical path is bent with a radius of at least 22 meters during virtual straightforward movements. If redirected walking is applied in a smaller workspace, manipulations become noticeable, but users are still able to move through a potentially infinitely large virtual world by walking. For this semi-natural form of locomotion, the question arises if such manipulations impose cognitive demands on the user, which may compete with other tasks in IVEs for finite cognitive resources. In this article we present an experiment in which we analyze the mutual influence between redirected walking and verbal as well as spatial working memory tasks using a dual-tasking method. The results show an influence of redirected walking on verbal as well as spatial working memory tasks, and we also found an effect of cognitive tasks on walking behavior. We discuss the implications and provide guidelines for using redirected walking in virtual reality laboratories.
Keywords :
cognitive systems; virtual reality; cognitive resource demands; dual-tasking method; finite cognitive resources; human perceptual system; large-scale IVE; large-scale immersive virtual environment; proprioceptive sensation; redirected walking; spatial working memory tasks; verbal working memory tasks; vestibular sensation; virtual camera motions; virtual reality laboratories; virtual straightforward movements; visual sensation; Cameras; Laboratories; Legged locomotion; Standards; Virtual environments; Visualization; Wireless sensor networks; Redirected walking; cognitive demands; locomotion; virtual environments;
Journal_Title :
Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TVCG.2015.2391864