Structural Deviations in immersive environments: Breaching Plausibility and Place Illusion of outdoor and indoor spaces

Structural deviations are atypical patterns known in environmental psychology literature to cause discomfort in physical spaces, however their impact on user perception within immersive virtual remains under-explored. Therefore, this work contributes by exploring how Structural deviations (Void, Defeatured, Symmetry, Repetition, Displacement, Big, Small, Presence) known in literature disrupt the Plausibility Illusion (PI the sense that virtual space seem real) and Place Illusion (Psi the feeling of being present). We designed two Metaverse inspired case studies: outdoor city avenue and an indoor pub, both with nine scenes each implanted by a single structural deviation. We ran a mixed-methods user study (N=46), in which participants were assigned to a Metaverse (between-subjects). All viewed a baseline, then several counterbalanced SDs (within-subjects), rating perceived realism (for PI) and uncanniness (for breaches of Psi). Statistical analysis (RM-ANOVA, Bonferroni) showed that all Structural Deviations significantly increased uncanniness and weakened Psi (p ≤ .001). Only Displacement and Big significantly reduced PI, with GLM identifying them as the strongest predictors of uncanniness. This work showcased how Structural deviations can be used as deliberate design choices to affect significantly the user experience, and how further studies in perception theory are needed to further explore designers’ tools for crafting next-gen IVEs.