The Effects of Teleportation on Recollection of the Structure of a Virtual World

Abstract

Teleportation is a virtual world navigation technique that allows users to travel at an infinite velocity from one lo-cation to another. Unfortunately, teleportation is known to cause disorientation in many users. This paper reports on an experiment designed to explore the relationship between teleportation and recollection of the structure of a virtual world when users are provided with a map navigation aid. Thirty-six subjects were divided into two groups (teleportation and free roam) and asked to collect objects in a virtual world. The results of the study showed that subjects who navigated with teleportation completed the task significantly faster than those who free roamed, with no difference between groups in the number of errors. However, when the map was removed, subjects who previ-ously teleported committed significantly more errors and took longer than those in the free roam group. There were no differences between groups on either of the post trial map drawing or map labeling exercises.