Steed, A;
Pan, Y;
Zisch, F;
Steptoe, W;
(2016)
The Impact of a Self-Avatar on Cognitive Load in Immersive Virtual Reality.
In: Hollerer, T and Interrante, V and Lecuyer, A and Suma, E, (eds.)
Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR).
(pp. pp. 67-76).
IEEE
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Abstract
The use of a self-avatar inside an immersive virtual reality system has been shown to have important effects on presence, interaction and perception of space. Based on studies from linguistics and cognition, in this paper we demonstrate that a self-avatar may aid the participant’s cognitive processes while immersed in a virtual reality system. In our study participants were asked to memorise pairs of letters, perform a spatial rotation exercise and then recall the pairs of letters. In a between-subject factor they either had an avatar or not, and in a within-subject factor they were instructed to keep their hands still or not. We found that participants who both had an avatar and were allowed to move their hands had significantly higher letter pair recall. There was no significant difference between the other three conditions. Further analysis showed that participants who were allowed to move their hands, but could not see the self-avatar, usually didn’t move their hands or stopped moving their hands after a short while. We argue that an active self-avatar may alleviate the mental load of doing the spatial rotation exercise and thus improve letter recall. The results are further evidence of the importance of an appropriate self-avatar representation in immersive virtual reality.
| Type: | Proceedings paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Impact of a Self-Avatar on Cognitive Load in Immersive Virtual Reality |
| Event: | 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (IEEE VR) |
| Location: | Greenville, SC |
| Dates: | 19 March 2016 - 23 March 2016 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1109/VR.2016.7504689 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1109/VR.2016.7504689 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. |
| Keywords: | H.5.1 [Multimedia Information Systems]: Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Architecture |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1474830 |
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