Differences between blind people's cognitive maps after proximity and distant exploration of virtual environments

Abstract

Visits to simulations of real spaces in virtual reality have been proposed as a means for blind people to gain spatial knowledge regarding the disposition of obstacles within a place before actually visiting it. Within the present study, different configurations of distant and proximity exploration were compared to each other, in order to test whether differences in effectiveness and efficiency lead to changes in exploration behaviour, without a detrimental impact on cognitive-map quality and usefulness. Evidence supports effectiveness improvements due to distant exploration (p-value = 0.0006). The flat-spotlight distant-configuration entails a 53% reduction in discovery time (p-value = 0.0027). A trend is observed entailing a 38% reduction in the duration of the overall exploration stage for a flat spotlight configuration (p-value = 0.067). Wall-detection effectiveness alters exploration duration (p-value = 0.012). Improvements in effectiveness and discovery time are associated with shorter overall exploration time. Duration of exploration after discovery time depends on wall-detection effectiveness. Benefits from a distant exploration configuration are not enough to build better cognitive maps.