Tim Greer investigates the way participants make sense of movement and way-giving in a VR version of our world.
In April 2024, we were lucky to have Adam Brandt from Newcastle University work with us here in Kobe on a JSPS Bridge fellowship. Since part of Adam's expertise lies in digital interaction, we decided to explore some of the VR data we collected in 2022.
In this data, three participants are transported to a virtual version of the world within the app known as Wander. This app combines images Google Earth and Street View with other resources for navigation tools like avatars, wrist maps and pointing tools. Our interest was in observing how novice users of the app came to discover new ways of traversing this unfamiliar world and how they adapted their direction-giving strategies to suit the constraints of the technology.
One of the main challenges for participants is that they cannot see each other's faces, so they don't always know where other participants are looking. This makes it difficult to establish shared reference--it is hard to say "Turn left at the corner" if you are not sure that your partner can even see the corner.
We noticed that participants initially relied on such referents, even when they were not sure if their partners had access to them. But later as they discovered more about the app's interface, they also began to orient to their partner's avatars to see which way they were looking, or to point at things in the virtual environment as they spoke. In other words, they were able to expand their interactional practices to adapt to the VR environment.
At the same time, there were other resources that they were yet to completely master. Shun worked out how to use the pointer to point to things in the others' fields of view, but Feng used the movement tool to do so, not realising that the others were not able to see it.
We held two data sessions on this data while Adam was in Kobe, the first with CAN Kansai members at Kyoto Women's University (20 April 2024) and the second an online collaboration with the MARGE group at Newcastle University (23 April 2024). We appreciated all the valuable comments and input we got from participants at both of these events.
We are planning to continue this research with a view to publishing it as part of a future special issue on movement in instructional contexts.