The effects of movement of attractors and pictorial content of rewards on users' behaviour in virtual environments: An empirical study in the framework of perceptual opportunities

Technological developments in Virtual Reality (VR) appear to outpace progress in design methodology of VR. The theory of Perceptual Opportunities (POs) has previously been proposed as a basis of such a design methodology (Blade and Padgett, 2002). This paper presents the first empirical study investigating the effect of representation of POs on users' behaviour in Virtual Environments (VEs). The current study has a methodological focus, using POs as a framework and desktop VR as a experimental environment. The application of an experimental paradigm is illustrated with two experiments. Evidence was found for an effect of movement type on choice of objects in a simple VE. Implications for VE design and the methodology of empirical research in the framework of POs are discussed.