Sharing spatial information in a virtual environment: How do visual cues and configuration influence spatial coding and
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Sharing spatial information in a virtual environment: How do visual cues and configuration influence spatial coding and mental workload? Isabelle Milleville‑Pennel1 · Franck Mars1 · Lauriane Pouliquen‑Lardy1 Received: 13 November 2018 / Accepted: 25 February 2020 © Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract When sharing virtual collaborative environments, operators exchange spatial statements that refer to the objects’ positions in the virtual space. If operators are to understand each other, they need to develop a common spatial frame of reference and then choose a space coding to describe the objects’ positions. In this paper, we consider how the content of a virtual environment can influence communication between users. We designed two studies in which one participant (the speaker) had to indicate the position of one object to another participant (the addressee). The virtual environment was sometimes enriched by additional (proximal and distal) visual cues. In study 1, we considered statements production. We observed that the speakers most often used the avatar of their partner as a spatial reference to indicate a localization in the virtual space (i.e., Addressee-Centered coding) despite it increases their mental workload. Nevertheless, in complex situations, they also used distal cues to speak to the addressees (i.e., Exocentric coding of the space). In study 2, we considered statements comprehension. Addressee-Centered coding and Exocentric coding were used by the speakers in various spatial configurations to indicate the object position. We observed that Exocentric coding is the most difficult to manage for the addressee. These results indicate that speakers implemented the principle of less collaborative effort by adopting a way of exchanging information based on an asymmetrical cognitive cost, taking into consideration each other’s difficulties. This allows a balanced mental workload to be maintained between the two operators throughout the task. Keywords Common spatial frame of reference · Spatial coding · Mental workload · Least collaborative effort · Virtual environments
1 Introduction The development of new methods of interaction proposed by virtual reality (VR) allows the creation of more and more diversified collaborative virtual environments (CVE). To be effective, CVEs need to allow the establishment of an accurate Common Frame of Reference (COFOR), i.e., a set of compatible (but not necessarily identical) representations of the virtual world that are continuously updated by collaborators and facilitate information sharing (Clark and Brennan 1991; Hoc 2001). The spatial COFOR (SpaCOFOR) is the part of the COFOR that relates to spatial cognition and determines the perception and comprehension of the action space (e.g., position, distance, and depth). It contains useful * Isabelle Milleville‑Pennel [email protected] 1
LS2N, Université de Nantes, Centrale Nantes, CNRS, 6004, B.P. 92101, 44321 Nantes Cedex 03, France
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