Hi, everyone. My name is Yan Feng, a PhD candidate from
Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands Today I will talk about my research that
investigates the usage of Desktop VR and HMD VR to study pedestrian route choice behaviour.
Pedestrians perform route and exit choices in buildings on a daily basis. Performing
route and exit in large-scale and multilevel buildings, such as train stations, hospitals,
can be difficult because of the complexity of the three-dimensional environment. VR provides
the possibility to study pedestrian route and exit choice behaviour in complex buildings.
Different VR technologies have been used to study pedestrian route and exit choice,
such as the head-mounted display (HMD) and the desktop VR.
Different VR technologies have different characteristics and may
cause people to interact and perceive the virtual environment differently.
However, only a few studies have directly compared the influence of VR on pedestrian behaviour,
and the experimental environments were relatively simple. Consequently, there is a strong need to
compare VR technologies regarding their impact on pedestrian behaviour and user experience.
So that’s the objective of the current study, we want to investigate the pedestrian behavioural
difference and user experience difference between HMD and Desktop VR. This comparison will allow us
to identify best practice regarding the usage of VR technologies for pedestrian behaviour research.
The current study builds on a developed VR research tool that was specifically designed
to collect pedestrian route and exit choice behaviour data in a complex virtual building.
This VR tool allows free navigation through all the building,
and it can automatically record movements and vision fields of participants.
Applying this tool, we conducted VR experiment with a total sample of 71 participants.
36 participants took part in the HMD group and 35 took part in the Desktop group.
Each participant needs to perform four different wayfinding tasks,
which including three normal wayfinding task and a final evacuation task.
Two types of data were collected. Pedestrian movement trajectory data
were collected through the VR tool. Using this data,
we can derive information such as route choice and task performance.
Meanwhile, a questionnaire was used to collect user experience data,
including face validity, simulation sickness, usability and feeling of presence.
Comparing the results from HMD and Desktop group,
we found that significant difference of pedestrian route choice behaviour only exists during task 3.
Regarding task performance, there are significant differences between two groups during all tasks.
But we didn’t find any significant difference of user experience between two groups.
From the results, we found that pedestrian from HMD group had worse task performance,
for instance, they spent significantly longer time. It might because the HMD device is more
difficult to operate but more natural to look around and observe the virtual environment.
And we found that when the destination was not clear-cut, namely during task 3, participants from
the HMD group used more decision points and their choice of staircase are significantly different.
These findings imply that one could adopt more ‘simple’ VR technologies
for studies investigate ‘simple’ wayfinding tasks
However, in the case where the experience of the environment and searching behaviour are important
impacts on pedestrian behaviour, one is advised to consider carefully the differences in pedestrian
behaviour between the two VR technologies. Which of these two technologies is preferred
for the more complex wayfinding tasks is difficult to say based on the results of this study,
as there are no validation studies compare pedestrian behaviour in real life and in VR.
so for the future study, in order to clarify which of the two technologies should be preferred,
direct comparison of pedestrian behaviour in real and virtual building is needed.
Thank you so much for your attention.