Honors Program
[Honors-in-Discipline (Choose below)], Honors in Technology
Date of Award
5-2022
Thesis Professor(s)
Mathew Desjardins
Thesis Professor Department
Computing
Thesis Reader(s)
Phillip Pfeiffer IV, Michael Garrett
Abstract
Studies of how users experience Virtual Reality (VR) have thus far failed to address the extent to which rendering resolution and rendering frame rate affect users’ sense of immersion in VR, including applications of VR involving simulators, treatments for psychological and mental disorders, explorations of new and nonexistent structures, and ways to better understand the human body in medical applications.
This study investigated if rendering resolution affected users’ sense of immersion in VR. This was conducted by comparing the responses of two groups, relative to two measures of participant immersion: (a) participant’s sense of presence and (b) participant’s sense of embodiment. The treatment levels were (a) low 512 pixels per inch (ppi) and (b) high 2048 ppi rendering resolution. One potential moderating variable, game type, varied over three levels: narrative, objective, and situational. The participants were randomly assigned to a treatment level account for previous VR experience, neither participants nor the research observer knew the treatment level. Measurements were collected after each game via an Immersion tendency Questionnaire after each game. For each dependent measure, sample descriptive statistics—mean (M) and inter-quartile range (IQR) with a conventional significance level of 0.05—were evaluated to conclude the results. Data indicated that the rendering resolution did not affect user immersion, but the game type did affect immersion and the situational game type was determined to be significantly more immersive than the other game types.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Martinson, Brianna, "Stumbling into Virtual Worlds. How Resolution Affects Users’ Immersion in Virtual Reality and Implications for Virtual Reality in Therapeutic Applications" (2022). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 732. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/732
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.