Title page for ETD etd-07152008-140837

Type of Document

Master's Thesis

Author

Sowndararajan, Ajith

Author's Email Address

ajiths@vt.edu

URN

etd-07152008-140837

Title

Quantifying the Benefits of Immersion for Procedural Training

Degree

Master of Science

Department

Computer Science

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Bowman, Douglas A.	Committee Chair
Cao, Yong	Committee Member
Quek, Francis K. H.	Committee Member

Keywords

Experimetn Design
Human memory model
Trauma Room simulation
Memorization
Training
Immersive Virtual Environments
Virtual Reality

Date of Defense

2008-07-01

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

Training is one of the most important and widely-used applications of immersive
Virtual Reality (VR). Research has shown that Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs)
are beneficial for training motor activities and spatial activities, but it is unclear whether
immersive VEs are beneficial for purely mental activities, such as memorizing a
procedure. In this thesis, we present two experiments to identify benefits of immersion
for a procedural training process. The first experiment is a between-subjects experiment
comparing two levels of immersion in a procedural training task. For the higher level of
immersion, we used a large L-shaped projection display. We used a typical laptop display
for the lower level of immersion. We asked participants to memorize two procedures: one
simple and the other complex. We found that the higher level of immersion resulted in
significantly faster task performance and reduced error for the complex procedure. As
result of the first experiment we performed a controlled second experiment. We
compared two within-subjects variables namely environment and location under various
treatments formed by combination of three between-subject variables namely Software
Field Of View (SFOV), Physical FOV, Field Of Regard (FOR). We found that SFOV is
the most essential component for learning a procedure efficiently using IVEs. We
hypothesize that the higher level of immersion helped users to memorize the complex
procedure by providing enhanced spatial cues, leading to the development of an accurate
mental map that could be used as a memory aid.

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