A Comprehensive Study on Interaction Fidelity and Carry-over Effects in Virtual Reality Environment

Investigating carry-over effects is essential when designing a userfriendly and efficient system, yet there has been a scarcity of studies addressing these effects in interaction fidelity.This study aims to assess the impact of high-fidelity virtual reality (VR) interactions on subsequent low-fidelity VR interactions and vice versa.An experiment is conducted using a VR gaming scenario, examining how an experience at a specific fidelity level influenced subsequent interactions at different fidelity levels.As per the authors' knowledge, this is the first approach to employ high-low-high (H-L-H) and lowhigh-low (L-H-L) fidelity conditions, where participants are initially tested in their base fidelity condition, then perform tasks in another fidelity to potentially induce carry-over effects before being retested in their base condition.The findings reveal that carry-over effects significantly influence participants' performance and motion sickness levels.Notably, those in the H-L-H groups required more time and experienced greater motion sickness than their counterparts in the L-H-L groups.This study offers significant contributions to the field of virtual reality and human-computer interaction by providing insights into improving user experiences, informing design guidelines, tailoring VR applications, enhancing training and simulation, and addressing healthcare applications.Additionally, it paves the way for future research directions in understanding carry-over effects and fidelity variations in VR contexts.