The effects of levels of immersion on memory and presence in virtual environments: A reality centered approach

Simulation fidelity is characterized as the extent to which a Virtual Envir onment (VE) and relevant interactions with it are indistinguishable from a user's interaction with a real environment. The growing number of VE traini ng applications which target a high level of simulation fidelity, mainly fo r transfer of training in the real world, have made it crucial to examine t he manner in which these particular implementations and designs are evaluat ed. The methodology presented in this study focuses on real versus simulate d virtual worlds, comparing participants' level of presence, task performan ce, and cognition state employed to complete a memory task. A 15-minute sem inar was presented in four different conditions including real, 3D desktop, 3D Head Mounted Display (HMD) and Audio-only (between-subjects design). Fo ur independent groups of 18 participants took part in the experiment, which investigated the effects of levels of immersion on participants' memory re call and memory awareness state (relevant to episodic and semantic memory t ypes) as well as on their perception of the experimental space and sense of presence for every condition. The level of reported presence was not posit ively associated with accurate memory recall in all conditions, although th e scores for both presence and seminar memory recall in the "real" conditio n were statistically higher. Memory awareness states' analysis gave a inval uable insight into "how" participants remembered both communicated informat ion and space, as opposed to "what," most interestingly across specific con ditions where results for presence and accurate memory recall were not prov en to be significant.