Visual cues in VR for guiding attention vs. restoring attention after a short distraction

Abstract

Distraction in VR training environments may be mitigated with a visual cue intended to guide user attention to a target. A survey of related literature suggests a past focus on “search and selection” tasks to evaluate a cue’s capability for guidance. We investigate the capability of 9 eye-tracked cues with a new type of task that focuses on how to restore attention when a short distraction (e.g., a notification) shifts focus away from a target. Our study includes a guidance task in which subjects gaze at objects in a randomized order and a restoration task in which gaze sequences are interrupted by distraction events after which gaze must be returned to an object. We consider a wider variety of factors and metrics than previous studies, varying object spacing, gaze dwell time, and distraction distance and duration, and breaking down guidance time into subcomponents. Results show a general positive trend for cues that directly connect the user’s gaze to the target rather than indirectly suggesting direction. Results further reveal different patterns of cue effectiveness for the restoration task than for conventional guidance. This may be attributed to knowledge that subjects have about the location of the object from which they were distracted. An implication for more complex distraction tasks is that we expect them to be between the short distraction and regular guidance in terms of memory of object position. So, we speculate cue performance for other tasks would vary between the short distraction and guidance results. For restoration, some cues add complexity that reduces, rather than improves, performance.