Evidence from prior research has demonstrated that exocentric views of the environment can facilitate the acquisition of survey knowledge in a virtual environment. The present study examined the effect of different exocentric views on judging the relative direction of objects. During the participants’ vertical movement in a virtual room, participants learned the spatial layout in one of three conditions: two-perspective, attentive-elevation, and normal-elevation conditions, where the number of the exocentric perspectives from which the spatial layout was observed was different. After spatial learning, they made the judgment of the relative direction of objects. The analysis of spatial judgment showed that as the number of exocentric perspectives increased, the accuracy improved in the mental representation of spatial vertical information and spatial information in novel directions. Results indicated that the increased number of exocentric perspectives during the vertical movement facilitated the flexible acquisition of survey knowledge. Applications of this study included the design of effective navigation aids in virtual multilevel buildings.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	virtual reality, perspective, perception
Research Division:	Information and Computing Sciences
Research Group:	Library and information studies
Research Field:	Human information interaction and retrieval
Objective Division:	Information and Communication Services
Objective Group:	Information systems, technologies and services
Objective Field:	Information systems, technologies and services not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Duh, HBL (Professor Henry Duh)
ID Code:	90293
Year Published:	2010
Web of Science® Times Cited:	5
Deposited By:	Information and Communication Technology
Deposited On:	2014-03-31
Last Modified:	2014-05-20
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