Ego vs. Exo and Active vs. Passive: Investigating the Individual and Combined Effects of Viewpoint and Navigation on Spatial Immersion and Understanding in Immersive Storytelling

Research Background and Issues

• What problems or challenges did the authors identify?

  • Traditional web-based visual storytelling is well-established, but the next generation of storytelling design based on immersive technologies remains in the exploratory stage.
  • In immersive storytelling, how to optimize users' spatial immersion and understanding of story content is still unclear.
  • There is a lack of systematic research on the effects of perspective (Egocentric vs. Exocentric) and navigation methods (Active vs. Passive), leading to a lack of theoretical guidance for designing immersive storytelling.
  • Storytelling forms that preliminarily adopt immersive technologies, such as 360-degree videos, often lack user navigation freedom and have low interactivity.

• Why is this issue important?

  • Immersive technologies (e.g., virtual reality) have garnered widespread attention due to their ability to provide users with full immersion and deep interaction.
  • Optimizing storytelling design based on immersive technologies can enhance information dissemination, emotional engagement, and content comprehension, thereby advancing fields such as journalism and education.

• Research motivation and related work

  • Based on existing research (e.g., visual storytelling, immersive experiences, and perspective selection), the authors aim to reveal the effects of perspective and navigation in immersive storytelling through experiments.
  • Although prior literature has explored the application of immersive experiences in specific fields such as education and journalism, further design exploration of data visualization in storytelling scenarios remains insufficient.

Solution

• What methods or solutions are proposed?

  • The authors compared the differences between Egocentric (self-perspective) and Exocentric (external perspective) and combined Active (active navigation) and Passive navigation to construct and evaluate four different combination scenarios (Ego+Active, Ego+Passive, Exo+Active, Exo+Passive).
  • For the study, the authors selected rich 3D spatial content cases from existing web-based storytelling and adapted them to immersive environments.

• Innovative aspects of the solution?

  • Designed a user research framework based on perspective and navigation combinations to test performance in terms of narrative content comprehension and spatial immersion.
  • Proposed design adaptation principles and developed immersive versions of four representative cases (e.g., Manhattan landmark reconstruction and COVID classroom ventilation case).

• Implementation steps and key technologies

  1. Preliminary research and extraction of design considerations: By collecting web-based storytelling content and expert opinions, four design considerations were summarized (e.g., key visual elements, narrative text layout, navigation-triggered events).
  2. Story adaptation:
     • Designed proportionally immersive scenes for Egocentric perspectives (e.g., COVID classroom).
     • Provided zoom adjustments and focal point switching support for Exocentric perspectives (e.g., Manhattan building models).
  3. User experiments: Conducted comparative experiments based on different design combinations (perspective + navigation), collecting data such as time duration, questionnaire scores (immersion presence and task load), user sketches, and narrative recall.

Research Findings

• What specific findings were achieved?

  • Egocentric perspectives performed better in spatial information memory (e.g., the orientation and transformation of 3D objects).
  • Exocentric perspectives slightly outperformed Egocentric perspectives in understanding detailed content and main themes.
  • Active navigation enhanced users' sense of immersion but significantly increased their cognitive load, especially in Exocentric scenarios.

• Advantages compared to existing solutions?

  • This study delves into the interactive effects of perspective and navigation methods in visual storytelling, an area insufficiently explored in previous research.
  • Provides specific design recommendations for different storytelling goals (e.g., enhancing spatial immersion vs. optimizing content comprehension), contributing to future immersive storytelling development.

• Experimental or evaluation results?

  • Users generally preferred the Ego+Active and Exo+Passive combinations, which cater to user needs for higher immersion and more focused content, respectively.
  • Active navigation resulted in significantly higher workload, particularly in information-dense Exocentric scenarios.
  • While Passive navigation was more comfortable, it could lead to a sense of loss of control and motion sickness for some users in Egocentric scenarios.

• Limitations and future directions?

  • The study only used single-linear narrative cases; future research should explore narrative adaptation for multi-branch storylines.
  • Only basic navigation and guidance technologies were employed; future work could integrate more complex VR interaction methods (e.g., redirected walking, gaze guidance).
  • Combining dual perspectives (Egocentric and Exocentric) is a promising direction for further exploration, including dynamic perspective switching and content transitions.

In summary, this study provides an empirical foundation for optimizing immersive storytelling and reveals how to combine perspective and navigation methods to meet the needs of different users.