Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Test Environment for Performing Reaction Tasks

Virtual reality offers many advantages for standardized experimental setups as well as for manipulating selected parameters. This study describes the development of a three dimensional virtual environment for sports as well as the evaluation of its effectiveness by means of a comparative test. The test consists of measuring the participants’ (n=33) mean simple reaction times ( ̅̅ ̅̅ ) of an appearing ball in a real, a two dimensional and the developed virtual environment. To assess the participant’s sensation of reality in the two dimensional and virtual environment, a short-questionnaire was used. Simple reaction times were measured by accelerometers fixed onto the participant’s wrist. The results of the ANOVA and post-hoc analysis (Bonferroni) showed a significant difference (p<0.001) of ̅̅ ̅̅ between each environment. ̅̅ ̅̅ between real environment (188ms (±37ms)) and virtual environment (286 ms (±69 ms)) was 53% lower than between real and two dimensional environment (373 ms (±68 ms)). Results of the questionnaire showed that the majority of participants had a higher sensation of reality in the virtual environment than in the two dimensional environment. This leads to the conclusion that the virtual environment evokes a more realistic behavior than the two dimensional environment which is important for research and training in sports.