Investigating the Effects of Physical Space Memory on User Performance in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality offers highly immersive experiences, yet users remain physically situated in real-world environments whose layouts often differ from the virtual spaces they perceive. In these settings, users’ spatial memory of the physical environment may interact with or even conflict with the virtual scene, potentially influencing locomotion, task performance, and situational awareness. Despite its importance, the influence of physical space memory on VR interaction remains largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, we conducted three controlled studies to examine how physical-space memory influences user behavior in VR across different conditions. Specifically, we investigated how the proximity of remembered physical obstacles shapes users’ immediate locomotion and interaction strategies, how reliance on physical-space memory evolves over time as virtual knowledge accumulates during continuous tasks, and how varying levels of spatial consistency between virtual layouts and remembered physical landmarks affect user behavior. Our findings reveal that users subconsciously adapt their navigation and decision-making based on remembered surroundings, even when no visual cues are available. These insights deepen our understanding of spatial cognition in immersive VR and provide actionable guidelines for designing safer, more efficient, and cognitively consistent virtual environments.