Effects of Age and Field-of-Viewon Spatial Learning in an Immersive Virtual Environment

Abstract

Adults and middle elementary schoolchildren (7-9 years old) were taught a route through a six room virtual house, while wearing a helmet mounted display (HMD) and using a joystick to navigate the virtual environment (VE). Participants viewed the environment under monoscopic conditions with field-of-view (FOV) set at either 30° H × 22° V or 48° H × 36° V. Participants performed tasks designed to assess their spatial knowledge in terms of landmark knowledge, route knowledge, and three configuration knowledge metrics. Landmark knowledge did not significantly change with age or FOV (p > .05). As both age and FOV increased, route and configuration knowledge significantly increased (p < .05). The results are discussed in terms of designing VEs for children.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alfano

Michel

(1990). Restricting the field of view: Perceptual and performance effects. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 70, 35–45.

Bricken

Byrne

(1993). Summer students in virtual reality: A pilot study on educational applications in virtual reality technology. In Wexelblat

(Ed.), Virtual reality applications and explorations (pp. 199–217). Toronto: Academic Press Professional.

Dolezal

(1982). Living in a world transformed: perceptual and performatory adaptation to visual distortion. Academic Press.

Hazen

Lockman

Pick

(1978). The development of children's representations of large-scale environments. Child Development, 49, 623–636.

Herman

(1980). Children's cognitive maps of large-scale spaces: Effects of exploration direction and repeated experience. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 29, 126–143.

McGreevy

(1993). The presence of field geologists in a Mars-like terrain. Presence, 1 (4), 375–403.

Kosslyn

Pick

Fariello

(1974). Cognitive Maps in Children and Men. Child Development, 42, 707–716.

Osberg

(1995). Virtual Reality and Education: Where imagination and experience meet. in the Schools, 1 (2), 1–3.

Pick

Lockman

(1982). Development of spatial cognition in children. In Baird

Lutkas

(Eds.), Mind, Child, Architecture (pp. 48–63). Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

10.

Siegal

(1977). Finding one's way around the large-scale environment: The development of spatial representations. In McGurk

(Ed.), Ecological Factors in Human Development. Amsterdam: North Holland.

11.

Taylor

(1997). Student Responses to Their Immersion in a Virtual Environment. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Chicago, Illinois.

12.

Wann

Mon-Williams

(1996). What does virtual reality NEED?: Human factors issues in the design of three-dimensional computer environments. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 44, 829–847.

13.

Wells

Venturino

Osgood

(1989). Effect of FOV size on performance at a simple simulated air-to-air mission. Helmet Mounted Displays, 1116, 126–137.