User attributes in processing 3D VR-enabled showroom: Gender, visual cognitive styles, and the sense of presence

• We examine viewers’ imagery styles on their experience of a 3D VR embedded interface.
• The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between visual cognitive style and presence is identified.
• Women’s object imagery style positively affects their sense of presence.
• Men’s spatial visualization negatively affects their sense of presence.
• Different experiences of the VR embedded interface by gender are from their visual information processing styles.

Virtual environments (VEs) offer unique opportunities enabling users to experience real-time interactive objects and environments. Due to its dynamic three-dimensional (3D) presentation capability on two-dimensional screens, research has addressed the VE in relation to users’ spatial cognitive factors. However, little is known about users’ preferred cognitive modes for processing visual information and factors that affect visual cognitive processing in experiencing VEs. Research on gender differences in human–computer interaction has developed as a subfield approached from an interdisciplinary perspective that encompasses fields such as information science, marketing, neuroscience, and education. This study aims to investigate whether different visual cognitive styles influence the sense of presence (i.e., simulated experience in VEs) and how visual cognitions and presence affect user satisfaction of the 3D integrated system, as well as to uncover empirical evidence of gender influence on those relationships.A total of 181 college students (90 men, 91 women) in diverse disciplines participated in an experiment using a VE stimulus and were given a questionnaire. The questionnaire was adapted to measure participants’ tendencies to use object versus spatial visualization, their sense of presence, and user satisfaction in the VE. Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we examined 3D visual information processing and gender effects. The results identify the relationship among visual cognitions, presence, and user satisfaction in VEs. We find it interesting that the results demonstrated significant gender differences in satisfaction as well as in processing visual information that influences user experience of the 3D VR embedded interface. Whereas women’s object visualization style was found to affect their sense of presence in VEs; for men, it was spatial visualization. This result supports and further explains findings of previous studies suggesting that gender effects account for differences in processing visual information.