Human navigation is an ability central to many activities. A prevalent hypothesis for different navigation strategies is the cognitive maps hypothesis, which is a complex navigation strategy that...Show moreHuman navigation is an ability central to many activities. A prevalent hypothesis for different navigation strategies is the cognitive maps hypothesis, which is a complex navigation strategy that relies on survey knowledge of the environment and involves the formation of mental representations, allowing navigators to efficiently and flexibly navigate through different strategies to reach any target location. Learning plays a crucial role in the development of navigation abilities, with individual differences observed. This thesis aims to explore the relationship between learning and navigation performance in real-life and virtual environments among Mbendjele BaYaka children, a hunter-gatherer community from the Congo Basin that relies on daily navigation for collecting food and has little experience with technology. I will focus on travel speed, contributing to our understanding of the suitability of virtual reality (VR) for spatial navigation research. The virtual navigation experiment involved children playing a computer game to find and collect food items in a three-dimensional virtual environment. The real-life navigation experiment included partially the same children participating in a real-life honey-finding game. Both experiments have been set up to investigate different spatial skills and their impact on navigation performance among children ranging in age from 4 to 16. My research took advantage of the fact that certain navigation tasks in this experiment were identical, namely repeated returns to the same location. The research investigates the travel speed of children, using linear mixed models to analyse the effect of trial number on spatial learning while controlling for age and comparing their spatial performances in real and virtual environments. The results showed that trial number and session had different effects in each setting, and there was no correlation between real-life and virtual navigation performance. This shows that more research is needed to improve study design, to make environments more similar, and to make reward moments more congruent.Show less
The importance of VR technology is increasing in many fields, yet current literature regarding personal characteristics and their ability to influence VR experiences is very limited and ambiguous....Show moreThe importance of VR technology is increasing in many fields, yet current literature regarding personal characteristics and their ability to influence VR experiences is very limited and ambiguous. In order to have a better understanding of these dynamics, this study analyses the relationship between Sense of Presence and interaction with VR environments in relation to certain personal characteristics such as personality type and mental rotation ability. For this purpose, 22 participants are recruited to experience the presented virtual environment. They are able to interact with certain objects within it, for example by lifting them up and throwing them around. Each interaction is counted and their answers on the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) and a Mental Rotation task are measured. A correlational design is used and scores are analysed by means of multiple linear regression models. Results show no significant effects for any of the factors after correcting for multiple testing, however Neuroticism shows a positive pattern for Spatial Presence (p<.05) and Mental Rotation demonstrates a possible positive relation with Realism (p<.05). In conclusion, it is postulated that personal characteristics might play a role in feelings of presence in virtual spaces, however due to limited power and other methodological factors, significance was not reached. In alignment with our aim, this study aids in enriching the scarce literature that is currently available by presenting its own results and by further offering interesting clues for future research into the relationship (neuro)-psychological factors might have with our experiences of VR.Show less
Mimicry is the replication of another person’s behaviour and/or physiological state in short temporal succession of the original behaviour. It can be differentiated into autonomic mimicry and motor...Show moreMimicry is the replication of another person’s behaviour and/or physiological state in short temporal succession of the original behaviour. It can be differentiated into autonomic mimicry and motor mimicry, with the former denoting mimicry of autonomic nervous system activity such as heart rate, with visible behaviours such as blushing or pupil dilation, whereas motor mimicry is any mimicry of motor movements. Together, these two types of autonomic mimicry result in emotional mimicry, also called emotional contagion. The primary aspect of emotional mimicry is reciprocal evaluation, as people with positive affiliation towards each other exhibit it the most. However, socially anxious people have deficiencies in motor mimicry and do not prefer a mimicking partner. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether highly socially anxious people would evaluate virtual characters exhibiting autonomic mimicry less positively than low socially anxious individuals. Within the study, 29 people with different levels of social anxiety were exposed to autonomic mimicry through pupil dilation by three virtual characters telling three different stories, whilst three others told stories without mimicking the participants, but still exhibiting occasional pupil dilation. Comfortability around the characters was measured through the desire for future interaction scale, and liking through an avatar evaluation questionnaire. Two repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) and two mixed ANOVA were conducted and yielded no significant differences in evaluation between the mimicry conditions, nor any significant mediation of these differences by the social anxiety group, suggesting that differences in peoples’ evaluations of mimicry are primarily reserved to motor mimicry.Show less
