Evaluating the effects of collaboration and competition in navigation tasks and spatial knowledge acquisition within virtual reality environments

Current virtual reality environments, due to their higher viewing resolution and degree of immersion, can help users to acquire spatial knowledge with more ease. In addition, they are considered suitable environments that can facilitate collaborative engagement. With recent advances, we have a new wave of virtual reality technologies in the form of portable head-mounted displays (HMD), like the HTC Vive and Oculus RIFT. In this research, we investigate the effects of collaboration and competition activities, that are carried out within HMD VR environments, on users’ navigation behavior and acquisition of spatial knowledge. To do this investigation, we have developed a 3D virtual shopping mall with 3 floors and a number of shops. This mall resembles one that people would normally visit in real life. We then have conducted an experiment with two groups of paired users and one group of single users. Their task is twofold: (1) to navigate within the virtual mall and collect a set of items placed throughout the mall; and (2) to remember the locations of the items and several designated shops. While they have to do this in the shortest time possible, one group of paired users have to work in collaboration with each other, and the other group in competition. Paired users in both groups are physically co-located and are allowed to talk to each other. The third group of users have to work alone. After the experiment, each user is requested to pinpoint the location of the items and shops on a map with the layout of the virtual mall. The results show different patterns of user behavior for the two paired groups and single users. In addition, they indicate gender differences in behavior and performance. Overall, the results help us understand the effects of competition and cooperation in navigation behavior and spatial memory recall using commercial HMD VR systems.