Interaction with an immersive virtual environment corrects users' distance estimates

Objective: Two experiments examined whether prior interaction within an immersive virtual environment (VE) enabled people to improve the accuracy of their distance judgments and whether an improved ability to estimate distance generalized to other means of estimating distances. Background: Prior literature has consistently found that users of immersive VEs underestimate distances by approximately 50%. Method: In each of the two experiments, 16 participants viewed objects in an immersive VE and estimated their distance to them by means of blindfolded walking tasks before and after interacting with the VE. Results: The interaction task significantly corrected users' underestimation bias to nearly veridical. Differences between pre- and postinteraction mean distance estimation accuracy were large (d = 4.63), and significant (p <.001), and they generalized across response task. Conclusion: This finding limits the generality of the underestimation effect in VEs and suggests that distance underestimation in VEs may not be a roadblock to the development of VE applications. Application: Potential or actual applications of this research include the improvement of VE systems requiring accurate spatial awareness.