Human Performance in Immersive Virtual Environments: Effects of Exposure Duration, User Control, and Scene Complexity

This study examined human performance on a set of basic tasks representative of human interaction in most virtual environment (VE) systems. The effects of user movement control, exposure duration, and scene complexity on human performance, presence, and sickness were evaluated. The results suggest that to enhance human performance in VEs, providing users with complete control allows for effective performance on both stationary tasks and those requiring head movement only. With tasks involving both head and body movement, however, user movement control should be streamlined to enhance performance and reduce sickness. Presence was found to increase with improved performance; therefore, it may be beneficial to promote presence in VE systems. However, because presence did not increase with prolonged exposure, whereas sickness did, if exposure duration is used as a tool for enhancing presence while decreasing sickness, shorter exposures may prove effective.