Investigating visual determinants of visuomotor performance in virtual reality

Abstract

We report the relative efficiency of visually guided movement in virtual reality (VR) compared to that in the real world using a standardised visuomotor task based on Fitts’ tapping. Haptic cues were veridical across both displays to ensure that any differences in performance could be attributed to characteristics of the visual display. The presence of binocular cues, and of monocular surface texture and motion parallax cues was manipulated across four ordinal visual conditions: binocular + texture + motion, monocular + texture + motion, monocular + motion, monocular. Binocular cues were found to have a similar benefit for VR and real-world performance. Surface texture cues were found to have no benefit for either display. Motion parallax cues were found to have a similar benefit for VR and real-world performance. Overall, task performance in VR was lower than in the real world due to both a slowing of movements and a decrease in their precision. Taken together, these results did not provide evidence for deficiencies in the presentation of binocular, texture or motion parallax cues in VR and suggests a non-visual locus for the deficit in visuomotor performance in VR. Limitations in the accuracy and precision of hand tracking are sufficient to explain the observed decrement in performance in VR.