Immersion and involvement in a 3D training environment: Experimenting different points of view

In this paper we describe an experimental evaluation, focusing on a comparison between a first- and a third-person view experience in a virtual training environment, that uses a chemical-physical simulator to reproduce liquid and gas leakages in the plant. We have compared user performances on self-orientation and object finding tasks using two different points of view: first-person and third-person perspective. Our findings show that a first-person enhance the performances through a major sense of immersion, and thus of involvement, in the object finding tasks. However, there is not significant difference in the performances when the users have to move in the 3D scene and orient themselves.