Immersion, presence and performance in virtual environments: an experiment with tri-dimensional chess

This paper describes an experiment to assess the influence of immersion on performance in immersive virtual environments. The task involved Tri-Dimensional Chess, and required subjects to reproduce on a real chess board the state of board learned from a sequence of moves witnessed in a virtual environment. Twenty four subjects were allocated to a factorial design consisting of two levels of immersion (exocentric screen based, and egocentric HMD based), and two kinds of environment (plain and realistic). The results suggest that egocentric subjects performed better than exocentric, and those in the more realistic environment performed better than those in the less realistic environment. Previous knowledge of chess, and amount of virtual practice were also significant, and may be considered as control variables to equalise these factors amongst the subjects. Other things being equal, males remembered the moves better than females, although female performance improved with higher spatial ability test score. The paper also attempts to clarify the relationship between immersion, presence and performance, and locates the experiment within such a theoretical framework.

[1]  James C. Chung.  A comparison of head-tracked and non-head-tracked steering modes in the targeting of radiotherapy treatment beams , 1992, I3D '92.

[2]  N. L. Johnson,et al.  Multivariate Analysis , 1958, Nature.

[3]  Woodrow Barfield,et al.  Presence and performance within virtual environments , 1995 .

[4]  S. R. Ellis.  Nature and origins of virtual environments: a bibliographical essay , 1991 .

[5]  Stephen Jones,et al.  Is VR Better than a Workstation? A Report on Human Performance Experiments in Progress , 1995, Virtual Environments.

[6]  Jonathan Steuer,et al.  Defining virtual reality: dimensions determining telepresence , 1992 .

[7]  Henry Fuchs,et al.  Research directions in virtual environments: report of an NSF Invitational Workshop, March 23-24, 1992, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , 1992, COMG.

[8]  David R. Cox.  The analysis of binary data , 1970 .

[9]  Jack M. Loomis,et al.  Understanding synthetic experience must begin with the analysis of ordinary perceptual experience , 1993, Proceedings of 1993 IEEE Research Properties in Virtual Reality Symposium.

[10]  Mel Slater,et al.  Depth of Presence in Virtual Environments , 1994, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[11]  Bob G. Witmer,et al.  Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments , 1994 .

[12]  Mel Slater,et al.  Modelling in immersive virtual environments: a case for the science of VR , 1995 .

[13]  Thomas B. Sheridan,et al.  Musings on Telepresence and Virtual Presence , 1992, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[14]  Warren Robinett,et al.  Synthetic Experience:A Proposed Taxonomy , 1992, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[15]  Mel Slater,et al.  Taking steps: the influence of a walking technique on presence in virtual reality , 1995, TCHI.

[16]  Mel Slater,et al.  Collaborative geometrical modeling in immersive virtual environments , 1996 .