Spatial orientation and familiarity in a small-scale real environment using PC-based virtual environment technology

摘要

Conducting training in a new or unfamiliar environment requires a certain amount of time to acquire the necessary spatial orientation and familiarity to that environment's physical layout. This thesis explores the effects of exposing individuals to a PC-based virtual replication of a small-scale real world training environment to determine if such exposure has any effect on an individual's ability to acquire the necessary spatial orientation and familiarity of the real world environment. In this thesis individual spatial orientation and familiarity to the layout of the real world environment will be measured using a set of retrieval tasks conducted in the real environment and by development of a sketched map of that environment. Establishing a link between an individual's ability to gain an acceptable level of spatial orientation and familiarity with a real world environment by first exposing them to a PC-based virtual replication of that environment is vital to the future of video game development and virtual simulation technologies used for training in the military.