The effects of hyperlinks on navigation in virtual environments

Hyperlinks introduce discontinuities of movement to 3-D virtual environment s (VEs). Nine independent attributes of hyperlinks are defined and their li kely effects on navigation in VEs are discussed. Four experiments are descr ibed in which participants repeatedly navigated VEs that were either conven tional (i.e. obeyed the laws of Euclidean space), or contained hyperlinks. Participants learned spatial knowledge slowly in both types of environment, echoing the Endings of previous studies that used conventional VEs. The de trimental effects on participants' spatial knowledge of using hyperlinks fo r movement were reduced when a time-delay was introduced, but participants still developed less accurate knowledge than they did in the conventional V Es. Visual continuity had a greater influence on participants' rate of lear ning than continuity of movement, and participants were able to exploit hyp erlinks that connected together disparate regions of a VE to reduce travel time. (C) 2000 Academic Press.