Abstract
The application of virtual reality in a driving simulation is not novel, yet little is known about the use of this technology by senior populations. The effects of age, gender, control device (joystick or handlebar), and task type on wayfinding proficiency using a virtual reality (VR) driving simulation were explored. The driving experiment model involved 96 randomly recruited participants, namely, 48 young people and 48 seniors (split evenly by gender in each group). Experiment results and statistical analyses indicated that, in a VR driving scenario, task type significantly affected VR driving performance. Navigational scores were significantly higher for the straight (easy/symmetrical straight route) task than those for the curved (difficult/asymmetrical curved route) task. The aging effect was the main reason for the significant and interacting effects of gender and control device. Interactions between age and gender difference indicated that the young group exhibited better wayfinding performance than the senior group did, and in the young group, males had better performance than that of females. Similarly, interactions between age and control device indicated that the handlebar control-device type resulted in better performance than the joystick device did in the young group, but no difference was found in the senior group due to age or learning effects. Findings provide an understanding of the evaluation of the interface designs of navigational-support systems, taking into consideration any effects of age, gender, control device, and task type within three-dimensional VR games and driving systems. With a VR driving simulator, seniors can test-drive inaccessible products such as electric bicycles or cars by using a computer at home.
Highlights
The application of virtual reality (VR) in a driving simulation is not novel, yet little is known about the use of this technology by senior populations
One possible explanation for this is that the hippocampal formation (HPC) and related structures in the medial temporal lobe of the brain are necessary for encoding cognitive maps [15]
Split data for the young group showed no significant difference in either task type
Summary
The application of virtual reality (VR) in a driving simulation is not novel, yet little is known about the use of this technology by senior populations. VR wayfinding tasks may be more difficult for seniors than for young people [1]. It was demonstrated that the aging effect would cause individual differences in VR operation performance [2]. The elder group was not as well adapted to a virtual environment (VE) as the other age generation [2,3]. Gender could trigger individual differences of VR task performance [4]. Some previous studies claimed that males tend to have significantly better performance than that of females on spatial-capacity tests [5], while others argued that the gender effect disappeared on mapping tasks [6]
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