Infinity Walk in VR: Effects of Cognitive Load on Velocity during Continuous Long-Distance Walking
Omar Janeh, Nikolaos Katzakis, Jonathan Tong, Frank Steinicke · 2019
Bipedal walking is generally considered to be the most natural and common locomotion technique in the physical world, for humans, and the most presence-enhancing form of locomotion in virtual reality (VR). However, there are significant differences in the way people walk in VR compared to their walking behaviour in the real world. For instance, previous studies have shown a significant decrease of gait parameters, in particular, velocity and step length in the virtual environment (VE). However, those studies have only considered short periods of walking. In contrast, many VR applications involve extended exposures to the VE and often include additional cognitive tasks such as way-finding. Hence, it remains an open question whether velocity during VR walking will further slowdown over time or if users of VR will eventually speed-up and adapt their velocity to the VE and move with the same speed as in the real world.