Head-Mounted Display with Increased Downward Field of View Improves Presence and Sense of Self-Location.

Kizashi Nakano,Takuji Narumi,Diego Monteiro,Naoya Isoyama,Nobuchika Sakata,Kiyoshi Kiyokawa

doi:10.1109/tvcg.2021.3106513

Abstract

Common existing head-mounted displays (HMDs) for virtual reality (VR) provide users with a high presence and embodiment. However, the field of view (FoV) of a typical HMD for VR is about 90 to 110 [deg] in the diagonal direction and about 70 to 90 [deg] in the vertical direction, which is narrower than that of humans. Specifically, the downward FoV of conventional HMDs is too narrow to present the user avatar's body and feet. To address this problem, we have developed a novel HMD with a pair of additional display units to increase the downward FoV by approximately 60 ( 10+50) [deg]. We comprehensively investigated the effects of the increased downward FoV on the sense of immersion that includes presence, sense of self-location (SoSL), sense of agency (SoA), and sense of body ownership (SoBO) during VR experience and on patterns of head movements and cybersickness as its secondary effects. As a result, it was clarified that the HMD with an increased FoV improved presence and SoSL. Also, it was confirmed that the user could see the object below with a head movement pattern close to the real behavior, and did not suffer from cybersickness. Moreover, the effect of the increased downward FoV on SoBO and SoA was limited since it was easier to perceive the misalignment between the real and virtual bodies.

Highlights

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) present a virtual environment (VE) with the use of high-resolution flat displays such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and eyepiece optics
We investigated whether the increase in the downward field of view (FoV) improves presence, sense of self-location (SoSL), sense of agency (SoA), sense of body ownership (SoBO), cybersickness, and head movement patterns in the virtual reality (VR) experience
We investigated whether using an HMD with an increased downward FoV can increase presence and sense of embodiment (SoE) (SoSL, SoA, and SoBO) because of the improved visibility of the VE and selfavatar

Summary

Introduction

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) present a virtual environment (VE) with the use of high-resolution flat displays such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and eyepiece optics. Previous research confirmed that HMDs with a large field of view (FoV) give high presence, the risk of cybersickness increases at the same time [12]. The downward FoV is important for awareness of the ground and the visibility of the user avatar’s feet, which are important when walking [17, 20]. The limited downward FoV of conventional HMDs degrades the sense of embodiment (SoE), including the sense of self-location (SoSL), the sense of agency (SoA), and the sense of body ownership (SoBO) [10]. Limiting the downward FoV negatively affects user behavior, such as increasing the downward head pitch angle [17], walking time, and the number of obstacle contacts [6]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion