3D虛擬環境中地標輔助與尋路策略傾向對空間知識之影響

Abstract

本研究主要探討使用者在3D虛擬環境中的尋路行為，以環境因素中的地標輔助之有無與個人因素中的尋路策略傾向做為研究變項，希冀了解這兩項因素對於使用者在虛擬環境中進行導覽時，其空間知識的形成及尋路時間長短的影響。本研究採用2 X 2因子實驗設計(between-participant factorial design)，獨立變項為「地標輔助因素」與「尋路策略傾向」，依變項則為「空間知識」與「尋路時間」，共有120位受測者完成實驗。 研究結果顯示，地標輔助可以幫助使用者在虛擬環境中建立較佳的路徑知識，同時在經過長時間的環境學習後，地標輔助能對尋路時間發揮效益，此種現象可明顯於地標策略傾向者身上看出；縱覽性策略傾向的尋路者，在有限的時間內比地標性策略傾向者較快獲取空間知識，但兩者的尋路時間長短則沒有顯著差異性。上述兩大因素分別對使用者的空間知識、尋路時間有影響，但兩者並無交互作用產生。 此外也發現，地標策略傾向者對於地標輔助的依賴度較高，其在有地標輔助環境中所形成的空間知識、尋路所花費的時間優於無地標輔助環境；而縱覽策略傾向者較不受地標輔助因素的影響，不論是在有、無地標輔助環境中，縱覽策略傾向的空間知識與尋路所花費的時間均無顯著差異。同時本研究結果亦證實尋路理論之基礎假設，空間知識對尋路時間有正向影響，亦即空間知識的表現越佳，其尋路時間也就越短；反之，若空間知識表現越低落，那麼尋路所花費的時間則越長。

The goals of this study were to investigate users’ wayfinding behaviors and spatial knowledge in virtual environments. Between-participant factorial analyses were used to find the effects of two independent variables, landmarks and wayfinding strategies, on users’ wayfinding performances and spatial knowledge acquisitions. The total number of participants who completed this study experiment was 120. The results showed that landmark design aided users in establishing more optimal route knowledge as well as better wayfinding performances in virtual environments. This was most clearly evident in the case of landmark strategy adopters. Meanwhile, adopters of survey strategies gained better spatial knowledge than landmark strategy adopters when time was limited, however, no significant difference in wayfinding performance was observed. Generally speaking, landmarks and wayfinding strategies both influenced spatial knowledge acquisitions and wayfinding performances, yet they did not produce significant interaction effects. Furthermore, the results also indicated that landmark strategy adaptors appeared to have a higher rate of dependency on the landmark treatment. They displayed better performances on wayfinding tasks and more accurate spatial knowledge in environments with the landmark treatment as opposed to those without the treatment. In contrast, adopters of survey strategies were not greatly affected by their environments. They showed no significant difference in wayfinding performances or spatial knowledge acquisitions across the two environments. In addition, this study also verified some basic assumptions of wayfinding issues which claimed that spatial knowledge had a positive effect on wayfinding performances and furthered that the more accurate the spatial knowledge, the better wayfinding performances would be produced, and vice versa.