Effects of Steering Strategies and Posture for 360° Object Selection in Virtual Reality

Most virtual reality (VR) object-selection research restricts targets to the user’s initial field of view, thereby lacking ecological validity for omnidirectional applications. Addressing this limitation, our study investigates 360° object selection in VR, evaluating human performance, workload, and usability across varying postures (standing vs. seated) and steering strategies (physical body movement vs. controller). Through a human-subject experiment with 36 participants encompassing 24 azimuth and three inclination angles, we provide novel empirical evidence on full-surround target acquisition in VR. Results also reveal that physical body movement is faster and more usable when standing, while controller steering yields stable selection times across postures and reduces workload when seated. This finding suggests that optimal VR steering strategies are intrinsically linked to the user’s physical posture. Ultimately, this work advances our understanding of full-surround target acquisition in VR, contributing to empirical guidelines for designing adaptive, posture-aware spatial interaction techniques in omnidirectional virtual environments.