Virtual Reality as a Human Factors Design Analysis Tool for Architectural Spaces - Control Rooms to Space Stations II: Subjective Measures

The Architectural Space Questionnaire (ASQ) was developed and employed in order to assess subjects' impressions of four different environments (two real and two virtual rooms) at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The ASQ consists of 18 adjectivepairs, arrayed in a 7-point, Likert scale format. Subjects first participated in avariety of distance estimation tasks in the Spacelab Payload Control Room and the Simulation Control Room and in their virtual reality (VR) analogs. After their experience in each room, subjects responded to the ASQ, selecting one value on each adjective pair continuum which best described their impression of the room they were in. The results indicated that the ASQ is sensitive to structural differences between real rooms. Differences between virtual rooms were minimal., possibly due to the absence of visual cues such as lighting and texture in that environment. Implications for the use of VR as a design tool are explored.