Enhancing virtual environment spatial awareness training and transfer through tactile and vestibular cues

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Environment Training
• Multimodal Sensory Integration

Background:

• Virtual environment (VE) systems increasingly incorporate haptic feedback.
• Designing effective multimodal VE training requires optimizing cue integration for learning and transfer.
• The impact of specific sensory cues on military VE training effectiveness needs empirical investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of spatialised tactile and vestibular cues on performance in a military VE training environment.
• To determine if these cues enhance training performance and knowledge/skill transfer to a new environment.
• To provide design guidelines for leveraging multimodal VE training systems.

Main Methods:

• Incorporation of two independent, spatialised tactile cues and vestibular cues into a military VE training system.
• Empirical examination of performance within the training environment and a transfer environment.
• Analysis of the effects of cue combinations, including tactile cues with head tracking and vestibular cues.

Main Results:

• Tactile cues significantly improved spatial awareness and performance in both training and transfer settings.
• Presenting two independent tactile cues during training resulted in associated performance costs.
• Vestibular cues appeared to modulate the benefits of tactile spatial awareness cues, with performance enhancements noted when tactile cues were paired with head tracking.

Conclusions:

• Spatialised tactile cues can enhance spatial awareness and performance in VE training, but careful design is needed to avoid negative impacts.
• The interplay between tactile and vestibular cues is crucial for optimizing VE training, particularly when paired with head tracking.
• Findings offer design guidelines for integrating tactile cues in VE to maximize trainee learning, skill acquisition, and spatial awareness.