Immersive information seeking–A scoping review of information seeking in virtual reality environments

Abstract

Recently, virtual reality (VR) technology has become more widespread. Humans increasingly interact with information in VR, and a detailed look into those activities is warranted. Thus, a scoping literature review (PRISMA-ScR) is conducted. It overviews all relevant literature about information-seeking behaviour in VR, focusing on existing models and theories. Out of 536 publications, 37 qualify for this review. Eight publications show an understanding related to information behaviour theories from information science. Pressingly, no publications relate models, frameworks or general theories of information seeking to VR. This review overviews VR-related cognitive and behavioural human factors based on this research gap. Those factors include immersion and presence, affordances, embodiment, cognitive load, human error, flow and engagement. The review is concluded with an explorative framework for future research that is constructed with Marchionini’s process model of information seeking as a baseline and in conjunction with the discussed human factors.