Information recall in a virtual reality disability simulation

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the sense of presence on one aspect of learning, information recall, in an immersive virtual reality (VR) disability simulation. Previous research has shown that the use of VR technology in education may facilitate improved learning outcomes, however, it is still an active research topic as the learning outcomes can vary widely. We hypothesized that a higher level of immersion and involvement in a VR disability simulation that leads to a high sense of presence will help the user improve information recall. To investigate this hypothesis, we conducted a between subjects experiment in which participants were presented information about multiple sclerosis in different immersive conditions and afterwards they attempted to recall the information. We also looked into whether there is any adverse effect of cybersickness on the information recall task in our disability simulation. The results from our study suggest that participants who were in immersive conditions were able to recall the information more effectively than the participants who experienced a non-immersive condition.

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Empirical studies in HCI

    • HCI design and evaluation methods

      • User studies

      • Walkthrough evaluations