Evaluating the Impact of Head Rotation Amplification on Virtual Reality Training Effectiveness

Virtual reality (VR) systems have been proposed for use in numerous training scenarios, such as room clearing, which require the trainee to maintain spatial awareness. But many VR training systems lack a fully surrounding display, requiring trainees to use a combination of physical and virtual turns to view the environment, thus decreasing spatial awareness. One solution to this problem is to amplify head rotations, such that smaller physical turns are mapped to larger virtual turns, allowing trainees to view the surrounding environment with head movements alone. For example, in a multi-monitor system covering only a 90-degree field of regard, head rotations could be amplified four times to allow the user to see the entire 360-degree surrounding environment. This solution is attractive because it can be used with lower-cost VR systems and does not require virtual turning. However, the effects of amplified head rotations on spatial awareness and training transfer are not well understood. We hypothesized that small amounts of amplification might be tolerable, but that larger amplifications might cause trainees to become disoriented and to have decreased task performance and training transfer. In this paper, we will present our findings from an experiment designed to investigate these hypotheses. The experiment more » placed users in a virtual warehouse and asked them to move from room to room, counting objects placed around them in space. We varied the amount of amplification applied during these trials, and also varied the type of display used (head-mounted display or CAVE). We measured task performance and spatial awareness. We then assessed training transfer in an assessment environment with a fully surrounding display and no amplification. The results of this study will inform VR training system developers about the potential negative effects of using head rotation amplification and contribute to more effective VR training system design. « less