Individual differences in teleporting through virtual environments: A latent profile analysis

Teleportation in virtual reality (VR) affords the ability to explore beyond the physical space. Previous work has demonstrated that this interface comes at a spatial cognitive cost – though, upon closer inspection, not everyone appears similarly affected. A latent profile analysis identified three groups that significantly differed on spatial updating performance and follow-up analyses showed significant differences in objective measures of spatial ability (e.g., mental rotation and perspective-taking). These results suggest that there are individual differences in domains of spatial cognition that are related to how well a user may keep track of his or her location while teleporting in VR.