Effect of Cognitive Load on Curvature Redirected Walking Thresholds

To allow users to perform real walking in a virtual environment larger than the physical space, redirected walking (RDW) techniques could be employed. Users do not notice this manipulation and immersion remains intact when RDW is applied within certain thresholds. Although many studies on RDW detection thresholds exists, in none of these studies, users were performing an additional task during the threshold identification process. These existing thresholds could be only conservative estimates and the potential of RDW may not be fully utilized. In this paper, we present an experiment to investigate the effect of cognitive load on curvature RDW thresholds. The cognitive load was imposed using a dual task of serial seven subtraction. Results showed that gender and cognitive load have significant effects on curvature RDW thresholds. More specifically, men are on average more sensitive to RDW than women, and being engaged in a dual task increases users’ RDW thresholds.

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