Review
Narrowing gender-based performance gaps in virtual environment navigation

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Abstract

Virtual environments provide a model of the world that can simulate real spaces or represent new, previously unexplored worlds. Effective navigation within these virtual worlds is a key to user satisfaction and goal achievement. Empirical research, however, shows large differences in navigation performance due to gender. This paper presents conceptual background on the nature of the gaps and how navigation tools might reduce them. Patterns of findings for empirical studies published after the year 2000 provide insight into the performance gaps and potential mechanisms for their reduction. Proven relationships between performance improvement and use of navigation tools are yet to be established, so user testing remains critical. Potential new research can provide additional understanding of the nature of performance by gathering user behavior and cognitive rationale data, further investigating gender differences in visuospatial working memory capacity, and applying metacognitive training approaches used in other navigable media such as hypermedia.

Highlights

► Virtual environments (VEs) are increasingly being used for educational purposes. ► Navigation performance within VEs is key to effective learning in the environment. ► Research shows males have better or equal VE navigation performance than females. ► How navigation tools might reduce gender performance differences is not clear. ► New research approaches may provide insights on gender VE performance differences.

Introduction

Virtual environments (VEs) present a model of the world that can provide education, entertainment, and even inspiration to their users (Stanney & Zyda, 2002). As in the real world, performance in the virtual world depends to a large extent on the ability to effectively navigate the environment. In the real world, one can search for objects, recognize landmarks, and travel along many routes, some familiar, some not, without much conscious thought. When one enters the VE, however, navigation is not as automatic; navigating a VE by controlling a mouse, joystick, or even haptic, multimodal, and wearable devices is very different than the perambulation one takes for granted in the real world. Many users experience performance problems with this kind of indirect navigation in a VE – even to the point of becoming disoriented and lost (Dalgarno and Lee, 2010, Smith and Marsh, 2004). Individual differences between male and female users are especially pronounced; the differences we see in the real world navigation for these groups are often magnified in VEs (Waller, 2000). Users need help in the form of well-designed navigation tools that help them gain full advantage of the benefits the VE can offer.

In the past, VEs were relatively specialized systems that did not have large numbers of users. Early VEs developed in the mid-1980s were used primarily for spatially intensive training of pilots and astronauts (Stone, 2002). The impact of individual differences on navigation performance was not as significant because of the small number of VEs and the similarity of their users. Recent advancements in computer graphics and networking applications, however, have brought about new generations of desktop-based VEs such as Second Life® that have millions of subscribers worldwide and the impact of individual differences has grown much larger in scope. Furthermore, VEs are now more commonly used for education purposes that are not related to specialized spatial training (Dalgarno et al., 2011, Ross et al., 2006) and, therefore, include broader cross sections of users who bring more individual differences that must be accommodated if VEs are to fulfill their promise to educate, entertain, and inspire.

This review is limited to considerations of individual differences in desktop VEs. Gender-based differences are the focus of this article because of their extensive coverage in the VE and spatial learning literature. This study explores the conceptual and empirical research regarding navigation performance of the user within the VE rather than the transfer of learning and associated performance to a real environment. Navigation performance focuses on the effectiveness of user techniques in performing a navigation task, such as searching for an object or traversing a path from the current location to another possibly unseen location.

There are two approaches to addressing user navigation performance in VEs: providing a tool or other mediating device to assist the user in navigation tasks, or organizing the VE space to make it easier to navigate (Darken & Peterson, 2002). This review highlights the compensatory approach of providing tools in the VE interface to assist the users in their navigation tasks. To provide the most current view of experimental research in this topic area, only empirical reports that were published in 2000 or later were selected. No publication date criteria, however, were applied to the selection of conceptual literature to include earlier foundational work in spatial skills and VE navigation. In addition to the specific domains of virtual reality and virtual environments, the topic of the review draws from many other domains including performance improvement, educational technology, instructional design, cognitive psychology, environmental psychology, and human–computer interface design.

Two literature reviews address some of the issues of individual differences regarding navigation performance in VEs. Stanney, Mourant, and Kennedy (1998) reviewed the human factors issues in virtual environments. They recognized the difficulty of navigation in VEs and devoted a major section of their review to user characteristics. Major individual differences between users were detected in previous studies, and user characteristics such as spatial ability, personality, and age were identified as factors linked to large differences in interaction and navigation performance. Nash, Edwards, Thompson, and Barfield (2000) reviewed performance and presence in virtual environments. Although this analysis primarily addressed the topic of VE presence, it did identify the user attributes of age, gender, computer exposure, and spatial ability as key factors that had been studied in VE navigation performance. The authors noted that previous literature identified differences between males and females in spatial ability, and limitations of age in areas such as cognitive performance and spatial perception.

The goal of the present review is to provide a critical analysis of current conceptual and empirical literature on the effects of gender differences in VE navigation. The concepts of spatial ability, spatial knowledge representation, and wayfinding are introduced because they are necessary cognitive components of VE navigation. Then, the paper reviews the common tools devised by VE designers to improve navigation performance. Finally, this review presents an analysis of eight recent studies on navigation performance in VEs focusing on the gender differences revealed in this line of research. Recommendations for further research and practice in VE design to improve user navigation performance conclude the paper.

Section snippets

Spatial ability and knowledge representation concepts

Spatial ability and associated skills are critical to effective navigation of both real and virtual environments. It is defined as cognitive processing involved in “representing, generating, and recalling symbolic, non-linguistic information” (Linn & Petersen, 1985, p. 1482). Spatial ability consists of spatial perception (orientation to one’s own body), mental rotation (the ability to mentally rotate 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional objects), and spatial visualization (complex multi-step spatial

Wayfinding and motion

Spatial ability and spatial knowledge representation provide a cognitive foundation for navigating VEs. Navigation is generally described in terms of wayfinding and motion. While wayfinding encompasses the tactical and strategic components required for effective navigation, motion is the kinesthetic realization of wayfinding. Movement associated with the motion component of navigation may take several forms such as walking, running, flying, teleporting, or even operating or being a passenger in

Individual differences concepts

Taking individual differences among users into account is an important step in the design of any human–computer interface. One of the traditional solutions to dealing with individual difference, matching individual skills to system demands, may not be a suitable approach for widely used, large-scale applications. To the extent possible, the technology should be able to accommodate user differences to allow for the widest possible utility of the interface. Accommodation, however, is often a

Mediating effects of interface proficiency

A useful latent variable model that shows the relationship between various individual differences and the ability to learn spatial knowledge from a VE was developed by Waller (2000). Although the results of this study revealed that gender was a significant predictor of the ability to learn spatial knowledge, it was also noted that the gender predictor variable was influenced by underlying variables of spatial ability and interface proficiency. Researchers concerned with measuring spatial

Accounting for gender differences

Gender differences in navigation performance exist, but VE design guidelines can minimize these differences. Designers should recognize the differences in spatial ability between males and females; for example, in a VE intended for use by males and females, designers should include both directional and positional landmark cues that can provide local and global references to facilitate navigation for both genders (Ross et al., 2006). An adaptive approach could also be taken in designing certain

Accounting for gender differences

The results of the recent research on individual differences and navigation performance agree with studies that were conducted previously. Results of the gender studies showing some metrics favoring males over females and some showing equal performance fit the pattern of Coluccia and Louse’s (2004) review of gender differences in spatial orientation. They hypothesized that gender differences only emerge when tasks are difficult, which is supported by differences in Visuospatial Working Memory

Conclusions

VEs are increasing in popularity and being used for more purposes than earlier generations that were primarily used for specialized training of intensive spatial tasks. To utilize these new systems to their full potential, users with different individual characteristics must be able to effectively navigate in these environments even though navigation or associated spatial tasks may not be the user’s primary concern. This changing user profile places increased importance on reducing or

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