Visual Cues to Reorient Attention from Head Mounted Displays

Abstract

Current head mounted displays (HMDs) cover only a small section of the user’s visual field, preventing the use of peripheral onset cues. This study investigates whether a centrally positioned cue can use the pursuit motion reflex to reorient attention away from HMDs more quickly than arrow cues. Thirty participants recruited from the University of Canterbury campus were required to find and mark targets which appeared within a 200° visual arc of a central focused position after being given no directional cue, an arrow cue or a pursuit motion cue. A subgroup of less than half of the participants failed to extract directional information from pursuit motion cues and the remaining participants responded more slowly to the pursuit cues than the arrow cues. Arrow cues were responded to only 40ms slower than targets appearing within the participants’ peripheral vision indicating that the search for a reflexive orientation cue may be unnecessary.