Designing Interactive Virtual Environment with the Considerations of Users’ Metacognitive Strategy and Wayfinding Facilitator Designs

摘要

This study is intended to explore users' metacognitive strategies, gender issues, and wayfinding facilitator designs pertinent to their construction of spatial knowledge and their wayfinding strategy uses. The purpose of this study are: (1) To investigate how a user's degree of familiarity towards a specific virtual environment, types of wayfinding facilitator designs, and gender differences may affect his/her wayfinding task performance. (2) To investigate how a user's metacognitive awareness regarding a virtual environment may influence his/her construction of spatial map. A large scaled 3D virtual city with various city landmarks was created for the experimental purpose. The generated results indicated that: (1) Participants with higher degree of familiarity towards a specific virtual environment perform better than those with lower degree of familiarity in wayfinding task. (2) Males generally perform better than females in wayfinding task within a virtual environment. (3) Once females become more familiar with a specific and simple environment than males, their wayfinding task performance can become better. (4) The participants with higher degree of familiarity towards virtual environments can construct better spatial knowledge by map drawing than those with lower degree of familiarity