Redirected Walking to Explore Virtual Environments: Assessing the Potential for Spatial Interference

Redirected walking has gained popularity in recent years as a way of enhancing the safety of users immersed in a virtual reality simulation and of extending the amount of space that can be simulated in a virtual environment (VE). Limits imposed by the available physical space and functional tracking area are overcome by inducing immersed users to veer imperceptibly in a way that prevents them from leaving the confines of the tracking space. Redirected walking has been shown to be feasible at levels below noticeable thresholds and to function without increasing the incidence of simulator sickness. The present studies demonstrate that redirected walking can function without negatively impacting memory for spatial locations of landmarks in a VE, despite introducing discrepancies between various spatial senses and distorting the spatial mapping of movement onto the environment. Additionally, the present studies implement what, to our knowledge, is the first generalized redirected walking algorithm that is independent of any task or environment structure, and can adaptively steer users in real time as they engage in spontaneous, unconstrained navigation. The studies also demonstrate that such an algorithm can be implemented successfully in a gymnasium-sized space.