A study of orientation in a zero gravity environment by means of virtual reality simulation

This study intends to clarify how people acquire visual information and recognize their orientation in a zero gravity environment. An experiment was conducted using virtual reality. In Study 1, each subject was given tasks in which a subject moves through virtual reality from the central room into one of six rooms such as operation room and habitation room. Textures composed by alphabetical letters were stuck on the six surrounding surfaces of the central cubic room. Visual information of the cubic room and the degree-of-freedom of motion were varied, and the subjects' performance was measured. To some extent the experiment produced a subjective sense of weightlessness. Moreover, we identified different strategies of spatial cognition and behavior under conditions of virtual weightlessness. In Study 2, subjects' orientational skills were tested with pointing and orienting tasks. Subjects followed virtual routes that were constructed of three or four rectangular modules that were connected by the cubical modules. Each subject moved from one end to the other end, and pointed to the start point and reproduced the experienced route using a scale model. The shapes of the routes were changed systematically. Analyses of the results indicate that the ability of special cognition changes with such variables as the number of corners of routes, the geometric number of fields and the number of fields with consideration to the body posture.