The link between spatial abilities, verbal intelligence and immersion in virtual reality

Virtual reality technologies are increasingly being used in the education of school-age children. However, the factors of effective using of these technologies have not yet been studied. The aim of this research was to study the link between spatial abilities, verbal intelligence and the level of immersion in virtual reality. 13 schoolchildren aged 12 to 15 years took part in the experiment. The stimulation was a virtual reality environment which replicated the task of spatial rotation of figures in 3D. There was a room with a neutral environment. Participant saw 5 pedestals in front of him, on each of which 6 multi-colored three-dimensional geometric shapes are arranged in different order. One pedestal in front and four in a row behind it. The first pedestal is an etalon that needs to be rotated by a given number of degrees – 180, 90 to the left or 90 to the right. The number and arrow are located at the top. Having turned the objects on the front pedestal in mind, they need to point with a flystick to the pedestal on which the objects correspond to the specified turn. Each participant solved 50 tasks in virtual reality. The environment was presented in a HMD system HTC Vive. Before immersion in virtual reality, the subject performed two-dimensional tasks on spatial abilities and verbal intelligence. Thus there were several dependent variables: the percentage of correct answers in 2D and 3D tasks, intelligence coefficient.

The results showed that there is a significant positive correlation between spatial abilities and the level of immersion in virtual reality.