Effect of the Turning Angle of a Curved Passage on Human Sense of Direction

Abstract: Recognition of the correct direction is crucial in reaching the desired destination, including the assimilation of the surrounding environmental features while dynamically moving. One of the scenarios where the sense of direction tends to misshift is when passing through a gently curved passage. However, there are few studies that have investigated the relationship between the features of curved passages and sense of direction.In this study, an experiment using virtual environment technology was conducted to evaluate the effect of the turning angle of curved passages on the accuracy of the sense of direction. The purpose of this study includes obtaining useful knowledge for the architectural design of passages to avoid a misshift of the sense of direction by analyzing the experimental results quantitively.Eleven college students participated in the experiment. The subjects were asked to wear a head-mounted display and walk through some curved passages constructed in a virtual environment. The subjects also wore soundproof earmuffs to prevent hearing the surrounding sounds.First, a virtual arrow was displayed and arranged at the beginning point of the passage. The subjects were asked to memorize the direction indicated by the virtual arrow. After memorization was completed, the subjects were asked to walk toward the end of the passage. Upon reaching the end of the passage, the entire passage environment was removed with only the ground left, and two different colored virtual arrows appeared instead. One of the two arrows was black, indicating the traveling direction at the end point of the passage. The other arrow was red, and the subjects could change the direction of the arrow using the trigger of the hand controller.The subject was then asked to adjust the direction of the red arrow to the same direction as that of the first arrow memorized at the beginning of the passage. The difference between the direction of the red arrow adjusted by the subjects and the direction of the arrow arranged at the beginning point of the passage was calculated as the evaluation values of misshift of the sense of direction.In this experiment, a straight passage and twelve curved passages with different total turning angles (15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 135, 150, 165, and 180 degrees) were set as the experimental conditions. Each condition was presented twice in a random order for each subject.The results of the experiment showed that the values of misshift of the sense of direction were significantly larger in the curved passage conditions with total turning angles of 90, 105, 120, 135, 150, and 165 degrees than in the straight-aisle conditions. This result suggested that the sense of direction tends to misshift in a curved passage in which the total turning angle was between 90 and 165 degrees.

Keywords: Virtual Environment, Spatial Perception, Subjective Experiment

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001977

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