TY - GEN

T1 - Doorways Do Not Always Cause Forgetting: Studying the Effect of Locomotion Technique and Doorway Visualization in Virtual Reality

AU - van Gemert, Thomas

AU - Kalaitzoglou, Ioannis

AU - Chew, Sean

AU - Bergström, Joanna

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - The “doorway effect” predicts that crossing an environmental boundary affects memory negatively. In virtual reality (VR), we can design the crossing and the appearance of such boundaries in non-realistic ways. However, it is unclear whether locomotion techniques like teleportation, which avoid crossing the boundary altogether, still induce the effect. Furthermore, it is unclear how different appearances of a doorway act as a boundary and thus induce the effect. To address these questions, we conducted two lab studies. First, we conceptually replicated prior doorway effect studies in VR using natural walking and teleportation. Second, we investigated the effect of five doorway visualizations, ranging from doors to portals. The results show no difference in object recognition performance due to the presence of a doorway, locomotion technique, or doorway visualization. We discuss the implications of these findings on the role of boundaries in event-based memory and the design of boundary interactions in VR.

AB - The “doorway effect” predicts that crossing an environmental boundary affects memory negatively. In virtual reality (VR), we can design the crossing and the appearance of such boundaries in non-realistic ways. However, it is unclear whether locomotion techniques like teleportation, which avoid crossing the boundary altogether, still induce the effect. Furthermore, it is unclear how different appearances of a doorway act as a boundary and thus induce the effect. To address these questions, we conducted two lab studies. First, we conceptually replicated prior doorway effect studies in VR using natural walking and teleportation. Second, we investigated the effect of five doorway visualizations, ranging from doors to portals. The results show no difference in object recognition performance due to the presence of a doorway, locomotion technique, or doorway visualization. We discuss the implications of these findings on the role of boundaries in event-based memory and the design of boundary interactions in VR.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - doorway

KW - effect

KW - virtual

KW - reality

KW - vr

KW - walking

KW - teleportation

KW - environment

KW - event

KW - boundary

KW - memory

KW - forgetting

KW - object

KW - recognition

UR - https://osf.io/ezct2

U2 - 10.1145/3613904.3642879

DO - 10.1145/3613904.3642879

M3 - Article in proceedings

BT - CHI '24: Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York, NY, United States

ER -