Exploring the Effects of Environmental Cues on Perceived Personal Space in the Virtual Workplace

In recent years there has been renewed focus on workplace design and its impact on workers’ productivity and satisfaction, particularly in open plan offices. Extensive research has been conducted to date on the topic of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). Here we sought to understand how perceived personal space is influenced by a number of variables that could influence IEQ; specifically, we tested how different levels of social density, spatial density, environmental noise presence, and type of view impact the appreciation of personal space in a shared office environment. We employed virtual reality (VR) technology to simulate shared and single occupancy offices and tested a sample of 60 participants over three experiments. We devised a novel measure of personal space estimation using a virtual disc around the participant which could be extended and retracted to indicate the perceived amount of personal space. We also used a traditional personal space satisfaction score. We found that participants experienced greater perceived personal space when 1) in a sparse rather than a dense office, 2) in a private office rather than an open plan office, and 3) having any view outside of the office. We did not find an effect of the presence of noise or increased social density (with spatial density held constant) on the perception of personal space. The results confirmed that simulated personal space in a VR environment can elicit natural, realistic responses of perceptions of spatial dimensions and that the features of the virtual office determine individual levels of personal space.