Effects of mixed-reality on players’ behaviour and immersion in a cultural tourism game: A cognitive processing perspective

• Published in: International journal of human-computer studies Vol. 114; pp. 69 - 79
• Main Authors: Raptis, George E., Fidas, Christos, Avouris, Nikolaos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2018
• Subjects: Cultural heritage; Cultural playful activities; Cultural tourism; Field dependence-independence; Game-specific behaviour; Human cognitive differences; Immersion; Mixed reality; Visual behaviour; Game-specific behaviour; Field dependence-independence; Cultural tourism; Mixed reality; Human cognitive differences; Cultural heritage; Cultural playful activities; Immersion; Visual behaviour
• ISSN: 1071-5819; 1095-9300
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.02.003

•The interplay among cognition, technology and cultural heritage gaming is investigated.•Interaction effect between technological context and cognitive style revealed.•Mixed-reality enhanced gaming-specific game-specific, visual behaviour & immersion.•Mixed-reality favored most a specific type of user (field-independent).•Human cognitive factor as a design factor in mixed reality environments. Mixed-reality environments introduce innovative human-computer interaction paradigms assisted by enhanced visual content presentation which require from end-users to perform excessive cognitive tasks related to visual attention, search, processing, and comprehension. In such visually enriched interaction realms, individual differences in perception and visual information processing might affect users’ behaviour and immersion, given that such effects are known to exist in conventional computer environments, like desktop or mobile. In an attempt to shed light on whether, how, and why such effects persist within mixed-reality contexts, we conducted a between-subjects eye-tracking study (N=73) in which users interacted within either a conventional or a mixed-reality technological context, and adopted an accredited cognitive style theory to interpret the derived results. Analysis of results yielded that mixed-reality interaction realms amplified the effects of human cognitive style towards game-specific interaction behaviour and visual behaviour. Findings further support the added value of incorporating human cognitive factors in both design and run-time, aiming to provide adaptive and personalised features to end-users within mixed-reality interaction contexts. Such practical implications are also discussed in this paper.