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Abstract

Previous research suggests that reasoning about imagined perspectives within immersive environments is difficult. In two experiments we examined the alignment effects (i.e., poor performance as the difference between one’s actual and imagined perspective increases) when the observer is external to the scene. Participants adopted imagined perspectives around a table and pointed to the position of a target. In Experiment 1 the spatial scene was experienced either as immediate in immersive virtual reality (VR) with participants located within the scene or as remote presented on a virtual screen within VR. In Experiment 2 participants viewed the scene on a screen in real world. Results showed that the size of the alignment effect was similar across environments in Experiment 1, suggesting that viewing the scene as immediate or remote does not create additional conflicts in perspective taking. However, when the scene was presented in the real world (Experiment 2) the alignment effect was smaller compared to viewing the scene remotely in VR (Experiment 1). Although one would expect that immersive scenes would yield a strong alignment effect, in fact having visual access to body information which by default is lacking in VR, might be an important factor for perspective taking.