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When Rich Media are Opaque : Spatial Reference in a 3-D Virtual World

Graphical multi-user environments such as 3-D virtual worlds aim to recreate the communicative affordances of face-to-face discourse, based on the assumption that rich media are superior to text-only media for the purposes of most human interaction. However, little research has as yet sought to determine the extent to which face-to-face discourse strategies are used in 3-D virtual worlds, and with what effects. In this paper, spatial reference in one graphical 3-D environment is investigated in the context of a cooperative task that requires subjects in teams to communicate with one another as they navigate through the virtual world. The inexperienced subjects start out employing face-to-face reference strategies, but upon discovering that these do not work the same as in the non-mediated world, adapt in the direction of increased focus and specificity of spatial reference, relying increasingly on linguistic cues and decreasingly on the graphical interface. In light of these findings, we suggest that the rich graphics and multidimensionality of the environment can be misleading: they seduce users into believing that spatiality in the virtual world obeys the same laws as in the physical world, thereby increasing the likelihood of miscommunication, rather than facilitating natural interaction.