The effects of direction and movement of attractors on users' behavior in virtual environments

Despite fast technological developments in virtual reality (VR), methodologies and guidelines for evaluating the design of virtual environments (VEs) are lacking. The theory of perceptual opportunities (POs) has previously been proposed as a basis of such a design methodology. This paper presents an empirical study investigating the effect of representation of POs on users' behavior in VEs. The effects of both direction and movement of attractor on choice of objects in a simple VE were studied. Results showed that vertical static attractors were chosen least frequently. Furthermore, there was an effect of direction for static attractors in favor of the take-off direction. Implications for VE design in the framework of POs are discussed.