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

Haptic interaction has been successfully incorporated into a variety of virtual environment (VE) systems, yet designing multimodal VE training systems remains challenging as each cue incorporated during training should maximise learning and training transfer. This study examined the impact of incorporating two independent, spatialised tactile cues and vestibular cues into a military VE training environment with the goal of empirically examining whether such cues could enhance performance within the training environment and also that knowledge and skills gained during training could transfer to another environment. The results showed that tactile cues enhanced spatial awareness and performance during both repeated training and within a transfer environment, yet there were costs associated when two independent tactile cues were presented during training. In addition, results suggest that spatial awareness benefits from a tactile point indicator may be impacted by vestibular cues, as performance benefits were seen when tactile cues were paired with head tracking. To fully realise training potential, it is essential to determine how best to leverage multimodal capacity of VE training systems by identifying how multimodal training cues may advance knowledge, skills and attitudes of trainees. Results from this study provide design guidelines for incorporating tactile cues in VE training environments to enhance spatial awareness.