Effects of maximum teleportation distance on wayfinding in virtual reality: the role of optical flow cues

Instantaneous teleportation reduces simulator sickness risk by omitting continuous viewpoint motion but may impair spatial orientation. Previous research has generally examined maximum teleportation distance and optical-flow transitions separately, leaving their combined effects during wayfinding unclear. We conducted a 2 (teleportation type: no optical flow vs. brief optical flow) × 3 (maximum teleportation distance: 5, 15, and 25 m) mixed-design experiment with 60 participants who completed route-exploration and unguided-return tasks in a virtual urban environment. Wayfinding performance and experience were assessed using sketch maps, navigation measures, the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. Sketch-map scores were lower at 25 m than at 5 and 15 m. Navigation time was longer at 5 m than at 25 m, and mean navigation time per teleportation increased across the 5-, 15-, and 25-m conditions. No significant between-type differences or type × distance interactions were detected for sketch-map or navigation measures. Simulator sickness scores were low across conditions. The aligned rank transform analysis indicated effects of teleportation type, distance, and their interaction that were not consistently reproduced by other approaches, leaving insufficient evidence for a stable simulator-sickness effect. Interview responses suggested that shorter-distance teleportation facilitated environmental observation, whereas longer-distance teleportation was perceived as easier to operate. The 25 m condition combined shorter navigation time with lower sketch-map scores. Distance conditions were paired with fixed scene variants, and the fixed 0.3 s transition coupled displacement with translation speed. The possible trade-off between traversal efficiency and environmental learning therefore remains specific to the tested configurations.