Locomotion in a Virtual Environment: Performance Measures and Physiological Responses

We are developing and studying a human-computer interface that allows a scientist to interact with complex software systems through immersive virtual reality technology. Virtual tools are being developed to empower the user to view, manipulate, model, diagnose, analyze, navigate through the software simulations and the multidimensional data it generates. For these tools to be truly effective, they must be evaluated in the context of human performance studies. This paper addresses one such category of tool: an efficient and natural means of locomotion in 3D virtual spaces. The current study is investigating three different methods of virtual body locomotion in the following context. Subjects were required to fly through a series of 3D tunnels while performance times and number of wall collisions were used as response measures. In addition, during each trial subjects were continuously monitored for physiological responses and psychological assessments were performed before and after the series of flights. This paper reports on the preliminary findings of the current study and the lessons learned in performing empirical studies on locomotion in virtual environments.