Assessing Human Interface Device Interaction in Virtual Environments

In this thesis we present a framework to design, implement and run Virtual Reality (VR) experiments. The framework offers test suites to run in conjunction with a VR experiment to isolate different aspects of the VR experiment. For instance, such a test suite specifically assesses the effects of Human Interface Device (HID) interaction on the results of the experiment. A test suite is a standardized experiment that can be executed before, after or even during the VR experiment. An important aspect of the framework, is to facilitate the creation and use of VR experiments. The framework makes use of repetitive patterns in the design of VR experiment to reduce the workload of designing a new experiment. Designing an experiment encompasses providing a definition of the tasks to be performed as well as a declaration of the environment and the user interface to be used. The framework generates the experiment based on the design, effectively removing the implementation in code. In this manner, this framework eliminates many of the errors associated with setting up the hardware and the use of large libraries. In this thesis, we use a virtual reality spatial navigation task in order to demonstrate the use of test suites. A major issue with VR studies in spatial cognition is the dissociation of spatial ability from the ability to use HID. Previous research in human spatial navigation has found large intra-individual differences in the spatial ability aspect of navigation. However, these individual differences have not been systematically investigated with respect to inpact of HID in the overall navigation performance.