Perceiving affordances in virtual reality: influence of person and environmental properties in perception of standing on virtual grounds

We evaluated the perception of affordances in virtual environments (VE). In our work, we considered the affordances for standing on a virtual slanted surface. Participants were asked to judge whether a virtual slanted surface supported upright stance. The objective was to evaluate whether this perception was possible in virtual reality (VR) and comparable to previous works conducted in real environments. We found that the perception of affordances for standing on a slanted surface in virtual reality is possible and comparable (with an underestimation) to previous studies conducted in real environments. We also found that participants were able to extract and to use virtual information about friction in order to judge whether a slanted surface supported an upright stance. Finally, results revealed that the person’s position on the slanted surface is involved in the perception of affordances for standing on virtual grounds. Taken together, our results show quantitatively that the perception of affordances can be effective in virtual environments and influenced by both environmental and person properties. Such a perceptual evaluation of affordances in VR could guide VE designers to improve their designs and to better understand the effect of these designs on VE users.