Learning and Transfer of Spatial Knowledge in a Virtual Environment

Two experiments were conducted to investigate route and configurational knowledge acquisition in a virtual environment (VE). The results indicate that route knowledge can be acquired in a VE and that it transfers to the real world. Furthermore, although it was not explicitly trained, participants acquired some configurational knowledge. Higher levels of interactive exposure to the VE resulted in better route knowledge than less interactive exposure. There was some evidence that more reported presence was correlated with better performance on spatial knowledge tests, while more reported simulator sickness was correlated with worse performance. Finally, performance during VE rehearsals was a strong, consistent correlate of performance on spatial knowledge tests.