Movement Strategies in Virtual Reality: The Influence of Effort Costs and Target Depth

Abstract

Kinematic analysis of users’ movement trajectories can reveal strategic movement biases; however, it is unclear if these strategic behaviors also occur in virtual reality (VR). To examine this question, we adapted a task from previous laboratory studies to examine strategic biases in movement behavior in VR. Twelve participants moved to targets positioned in one of two directions along the x-, y-, or z-axis in a VR inter-face, and trajectory profiles were derived and parsed to identify kinematic milestones. Results showed that users achieved similar task completion times across all conditions but used different strategies to select targets at different locations. These findings confirm that users can adapt their movement behaviors to optimize movement performance in VR and highlight how the constraints imposed by VR environments alter users’ movement strategies.