Navigating through a virtual city: Using virtual reality technology to study human action and perception

The introduction of virtual reality technology in the field of human perception and behaviour research has spawned many new research initiatives. The paper outlines the motivations of researchers in this field to start using virtual environments for their studies by presenting two such studies conducted in our laboratory. First, we discuss how we are building a large virtual model of the city of Tubingen and how we are using it for sur research on human navigation behaviour. Second, we present data on the phenomenon that observers tend to underestimate the perceived speed of their movement through a virtual environment, and we discuss what implications these results have for the design of virtual environments. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.