Comparison of Space Perception between a Real Environment and a Virtual Environment

Abstract

Virtual reality technologies are being applied to diverse industrial fields. However, the degree to which a virtual environment is faithful to a real one has not been assessed rigorously. This paper assessed the fidelity of a virtual environment to a real environment. More specifically, it examined 3 major issues: (1) Are a real room and an equivalently modeled virtual room perceived same? (2) How accurate are the estimated sizes and ratios? (3) Does presentation order affect subjects' estimation? We employed a real room and an equivalently modeled virtual room in the experiment. The sizes of the room elements are as follows: width 258cm, depth 380cm, and height 245 cm. Seven females and five males ranging in age from 20 to 42 years served as subjects. All subjects experienced the real room and the virtual room, and the presentation order of the rooms was counterbalanced. Subjects experienced the virtual room wearing the HMD. After subjects observed each room, they were asked to answer a questionnaire. The questionnaire included items on the perception of the physical and psychological properties of the room. The space perceptions in both rooms were not significantly different. When the estimated sizes in both conditions were compared with the actual sizes, the estimations related to height in both conditions were different from the actual ones. This pattern of results suggests that virtual environments instead of the real ones could be used for design and architecture with the adjusted height. Further studies on human space perception using better navigation methods are needed.