Psyberdesign: Designing the Cognitive Spaces of Virtual Environments

Abstract

Increasingly, we find ourselves spending more time on a daily basis engaged in a variety of virtual environments, ranging from those discovered when using the stand-alone computer, to more complex distributed networks such as the World Wide Web. Virtual environments are not restricted to the popular and hyped notion of immersive Virtual Reality systems, though, in immersion, such systems provide a dimension of experience sorely lacking in most human-computer interfaces. The design of a diverse range of virtual environments, from textual through to three dimensional, would seem to require insight from those who habitually create immersive experiences, whether real or virtual. The former include architects, the latter the authors of computer games. Virtual environments such as the Internet, and the World Wide Web in particular, are becoming increasingly confusing to navigate. Exploratory behaviour in these environments requires extensive cognitive effort, and often results in disorientation and a sense of anxiety. This paper attempts to address issues of cognitive mapping in virtual environment design, and the exciting role that architects should occupy in the creation of better virtual environments. A virtual environment tool, called WOMBAT, has been developed to discover more about the relationship between real environment and virtual environment navigation and cognitive mapping, and consequently the degree to which concepts and theories from real environment design and cognitive mapping research can be translated to the virtual environment domain. Both a natural environment and an information environment are being investigated using WOMBAT, with the primary interest being the cognitive mapping and wayfinding activities that are exhibited during exploration.