Abstract
Field dependence–independence (FDI) is a psychological construct determining an individual’s approach of the perception–cognition coupling. In virtual reality (VR) context, several studies suggest that an individual’s perceptive style is susceptible to shift toward a more FI mode through down-weighting of conflicting visual cues. The present study proposes to investigate the potential flexible nature of FDI following a virtual immersion and to assess if this flexibility might be associated with the subjective experience of VR. 86 participants explored a real-world–like virtual environment for approximately 10 min. FDI levels were measured before and after the VR exposure using the rod-and-frame test. Their subjective experience of VR was measured a posteriori (cybersickness and sense of presence) and used in order to build two experimental groups via a cluster analysis. The results showed that only participants with a poor subjective experience of VR (i.e., a low level of sense of presence associated with a high level of cybersickness) significantly shifted to a more FI mode, which is discussed as a sensory re-weighting mechanism. Pragmatical applications are discussed, and future studies are outlined, based on the conclusion that FDI might be more flexible than we thought, which could shed light on the psychophysiology of VR.
Highlights
Cognitive styles are defined as relatively stable strategies, preferences, and attitudes that determine the individual’s “typical mode of thinking, perceiving, remembering, and problem solving” (Messick, 1976)
The objective of the present study is to investigate the potential flexible nature of field dependence–independence (FDI) during a spatial exploration in virtual reality (VR) and to assess if its flexibility might be associated with the subjective experience of VR
FDev itself was significantly correlated with the sense of presence (r (86) 0.0215, p 0.023 95% CI [1, 0.038]) and cybersickness (r (86) -0.199, p 0.033 95% CI [-0.021, -1])
Summary
Cognitive styles are defined as relatively stable strategies, preferences, and attitudes that determine the individual’s “typical mode of thinking, perceiving, remembering, and problem solving” (Messick, 1976). The most prevalent and studied factor in the literature on cognitive styles is the field dependence–independence (FDI), which is more often considered as a perceptive style (Zhang, 2004). This unidimensional construct corresponds to an individual’s ability to perform perceptual analytic tasks (Witkin et al, 1971) such as measured by the embedded figures test or the rod-andframe test (Witkin et al, 1962). Fieldindependent (FI) individuals are strongly dominated by the analytical organization of the perceptual field: the field is broken down into its component parts.
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