Walking > Walking-in-Place > Flying/Steering > Teleportation? Designing Locomotion Research for Replication and Extension

In this abstract, we discuss the demand for replication and extension efforts related to two seminal studies focused on virtual reality (VR) locomotion interfaces, initially centered around a VR implementation of the Visual Cliff, often referred to as Virtual Pit. The original experiments by Slater et al. (1995) and Usoh et al. (1999) compared different locomotion methods, including Real Walking, Walking-in-Place, and Flying/Steering, with a focus on presence and ease of use. We discuss the importance of these studies for the field, motivate replication efforts focused on these studies, discuss potential confounding factors, and present considerations for a concerted effort to reproduce the findings with state-of-the-art VR systems and measures, extensions to locomotion methods like Teleportation, and means to support future replications and extensions.