Display conditions that influence wayfinding in virtual environments

Significant advances and flexibility in graphics devices for virtual reality have led to an increase in research related to wayfinding in virtual environments. Nevertheless, researchers continue to find that elements of realism are still missing and that human performance is not as efficient as it is in the real world. Another growing area of study investigates the utility of vection, the illusory perception of self-motion. This thesis investigates two visual factors known to induce or sustain vection in controlled experiments: field of view and accuracy of perspective projection. These are examined by measuring navigation performance in a fish-tank virtual reality environment. Subjects traversed a landmark-free virtual maze by turning a steering wheel and accelerating with a foot pedal to locate a goal state. Graphics software was developed to render the scene across three adjacent LCD monitors as a continuous world, and the perspective projection was updated to correspond to the subject's head position and orientation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...