Skills that involve further understanding of spaces may find benefit with training environments in virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR), deployed in head-mounted displays (HMDs). With HMDs, the view of the real world can be seen, if not approximately replicated or simulated. This can potentially improve the training transfer of spatial skills as tasks are performed in the real world as well. However, HMD-based training still presents some challenges, and research on its link toward enhancing spatial ability is still ongoing. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate different visual factors of HMD-based training that may affect the performance of spatial skills.
One of the main targets of criticism of HMDs is the field of view (FOV) size, whether in VR or AR. This limitation is prominent with optical see-through head-mounted displays (OST-HMD), as those with narrow overlay FOV (OFOV) sizes only provide a small window to view virtual objects. The purpose of this experiment is to investigate if restricting this overlay FOV negatively affects a user's ability to memorize spatial locations in a simulation of a work environment, and consequently, long-term memory transfer to an equivalent scenario in the real world two days later. To find empirical evidence, 18 participants underwent a within-subjects experiment, performing in three phases with an OST-HMD, simulated on an immersive HMD. For each phase, they viewed the training scenario with a different FOV size of the augmentable area (30°, 70°, 110°diagonal).
Results from recall tests showed that smaller FOV size did not significantly affect user’s performance on both short-term and transfer tests, but HMD data revealed that users rotated their heads less with a 110° OFOV. Furthermore, proximity of objects to memorize had an interaction effect with smaller OFOV sizes. The findings of this study could have implications on the design and HMD choices of augmented training.