Enhancing The Fidelity Of Virtual Environments Through The Manipulation Of Virtual Time

This paper investigates the benefits of manipulating simulated time in virtual environments. Above real time training in virtual environments was tested by having subjects perform a simple tracking and targeting task under two levels of time compression in a virtual environment (real-time or l.Ox and 1.7x). Results indicated that within both subject groups (l.Ox and 1.7x), there were no significant differences detected between the perceived temporal and mental demands of the testing and training phases. This indicates that the VT group did not perceive the change in temporal demands between the training (1.7x) and the testing (l.Ox) phases. There were, however, significant differences in the perceived temporal demands between subject groups. The VT group perceived less temporal demands during the testing (l.Ox) phase than the control group. This perceived reduction could be potentially beneficial for time-critical tasks, where training to ready responses is essential for effective task performance. In addition, training under the accelerated time condition did not lead to any negative transfer of training. © 1995 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved