A cross-cultural study of the influence of environmental factors on VR gamers experience of spatial presence, enjoyment, and subjective workload: A preliminary study.

Abstract

This study is a first step toward identifying some factors influencing spatial presence, enjoyment, and cognitive workload in virtual reality (VR) game play. The study was conducted in the Northeastern U.S. (n = 40) and Southwest Nigeria (n = 40) using a factorial experimental design with three environmental factors (i.e., lighting, flooring, and in-game sound) at two levels per factor. Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental conditions, playing a VR American football game using Oculus Rift S on 3 separate days, under a different condition each time. Following VR game play, measures of spatial presence (α = .86), enjoyment (α = .89), and subjective workload (α = .78) were collected through self-report surveys. A factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine the influence of environmental factors on spatial presence, enjoyment, and subjective workload. The study found main effects of (a) lighting on subjective workload for the Nigerian sample (Day 2 and Day 3), (b) flooring on subjective workload for both cohorts (Day 2), and (c) in-game sound on spatial presence and subjective workload for the Nigerian sample (Day 3) and on spatial presence for the U.S. sample (Day 2 and Day 3). An interaction effect of lighting and flooring on subjective workload was found for the Nigerian sample on Day 1 and Day 2. An interaction effect of lighting, flooring, and in-game sound on enjoyment was found for the Nigerian sample on Day 3. We present implications for theory and practice.