Effects of field of view and stereo graphics on memory in immersive command and control

Understanding what factors contribute to performance in virtual environments is key to designing future systems for training and teleoperation. The military is already a large user of virtual reality for training and may use virtual reality for real-time operations in the future for command and control. This research aims to identify what effects manipulating the field of view and the use of stereoscopic graphics have on performance of memory-based tasks. Presence, situation awareness, workload and simulator sickness were measured. The results of a controlled study with 100 subjects did not find a statistically significant relationship between field of view or stereo and memory performance. The results also indicated that memory performance is significantly correlated positively with situation awareness and negatively with frustration. This research indicates that the use of stereo graphics and large displays do not necessarily increase situation awareness in all contexts, but that systems should strive for higher situation awareness in order to increase a user's memory of the simulation.