Quantitative evaluation of visual guidance effects for 360-degree directions

Yuki Harada,Junji Ohyama

doi:10.1007/s10055-021-00574-7

Abstract

A head-mounted display cannot cover an angle of visual field as wide as that of natural view (out-of-view problem). To enhance the visual cognition of an immersive environment, previous studies have developed various guidance designs that visualize the location or direction of items presented in the users’ surroundings. However, two issues regarding the guidance effects remain unresolved: How are the guidance effects different with each guided direction? How much is the cognitive load required by the guidance? To investigate the two issues, we performed a visual search task in an immersive environment and measured the search time of a target and time spent to recognize a guidance design. In this task, participants searched for a target presented on a head-mounted display and reported the target color while using a guidance design. The guidance designs (a moving window, 3D arrow, radiation, spherical gradation, and 3D radar) and target directions were manipulated. The search times showed an interaction effect between guidance designs and guided directions, e.g., the 3D arrow and radar shorten the search time for targets presented at the back of users. The recognition times showed that the participants required short times to recognize the details of the moving window and radiation but long times for the 3D arrow, spherical gradation, and 3D radar. These results suggest that the moving window and radiation are effective with respect to cognitive load, but the 3D arrow and radar are effective for guiding users’ attention to necessary items presented at the out-of-view.

Highlights

Viewing 3D contents using a head-mounted display (HMD) has been known to cause out-of-view problems (Gruenefeld et al 2017a), which impair users’ spatial cognition of the surrounding objects
To test for the effect of guidance designs and target directions, a two-way within-participants ANOVA was performed on the search times with fixed effects of guidance designs (5) and target directions (25)
The colors show p values; redder indicates faster search times in the left guidance design than in the top design. These results indicate that the moving window and radiation improve the search for targets presented at a frontal area and that the 3D arrow and radar improve the search for targets presented at the back of users (e.g., LR180)

Summary

Introduction

Viewing 3D contents using a head-mounted display (HMD) has been known to cause out-of-view problems (Gruenefeld et al 2017a), which impair users’ spatial cognition of the surrounding objects. For 3D contents, visual events (e.g., computer graphics and real-life movies recorded by a 360-degree camera) will be presented omnidirectionally (e.g., the left, right, and back directions of users). In this case, users would have trouble. To resolve the out-of-view problem, previous works have developed various guidance designs that visualize the location or direction of items presented in the users’ surroundings. One guidance design is an extension of the visual field in which target items are transformed by projection into augmented items in the field of view. The 3D radar transforms target items surrounding users into a small map and superimposes it on the field of view. The other visual guidance technique is the attentional guidance, in which users’ attention is guided to target items by

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