IntroductionEye-tracking technology provides a reliable and cost-effective approach to characterize mental representation according to specific patterns. Mental rotation tasks, referring to the mental representation and transformation of visual information, have been widely used to examine visuospatial ability. In these tasks, participants visually perceive three-dimensional (3D) objects and mentally rotate them until they identify whether the paired objects are identical or mirrored. In most studies, 3D objects are presented using two-dimensional (2D) images on a computer screen. Currently, visual neuroscience tends to investigate visual behavior responding to naturalistic stimuli rather than image stimuli. Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology used to provide naturalistic stimuli, allowing the investigation of behavioral features in an immersive environment similar to the real world. However, mental rotation tasks using 3D objects in immersive VR have been rarely reported.MethodsHere, we designed a VR mental rotation task using 3D stimuli presented in a head-mounted display (HMD). An eye tracker incorporated into the HMD was used to examine eye movement characteristics during the task synchronically. The stimuli were virtual paired objects oriented at specific angular disparities (0, 60, 120, and 180°). We recruited thirty-three participants who were required to determine whether the paired 3D objects were identical or mirrored.ResultsBehavioral results demonstrated that the response times when comparing mirrored objects were longer than identical objects. Eye-movement results showed that the percent fixation time, the number of within-object fixations, and the number of saccades for the mirrored objects were significantly lower than that for the identical objects, providing further explanations for the behavioral results.DiscussionIn the present work, we examined behavioral and eye movement characteristics during a VR mental rotation task using 3D stimuli. Significant differences were observed in response times and eye movement metrics between identical and mirrored objects. The eye movement data provided further explanation for the behavioral results in the VR mental rotation task.
The uniform geometrical theory of diffraction (UTD) calculating edge diffraction, creeping diffraction, and reflection has been widely used to predict the shadowing problems for the beyond 5th generation. The limitation of the previous work, which only discussed the relationship between edge diffraction and reflection in the lit region, has motivated the analysis of the difference between creeping diffraction and edge diffraction in the shadowed region. In this paper, as the difference between creeping diffraction and edge diffraction from a dielectric circular cylinder and an absorber screen, respectively, a novel additional term is derived based on the UTD in the shadowed region. In addition, a uniform additional term using the Fock-type integral is proposed to unify the formulations in the lit and shadowed regions. The proposed uniform additional term is validated by the UTD and exact solutions of a dielectric circular cylinder at millimeter-wave or sub-terahertz bands. From the discussion of the results, the proposal can not only unify the formulations in the lit and shadowed regions but also eliminate the fictitious interference. Through the proposal, we can separate the contribution of the shadowed Fresnel zone number (FZ) and boundary conditions (i.e., the surface impedance and polarization). The frequency characteristics of the shadowed FZ and boundary conditions are analyzed and simulated near a shadow boundary at a high frequency (10 GHz-100 GHz). The results imply that there is almost no dependency (less than 1 dB) on boundary conditions in the lit region while there are a few dependencies (more than 1 dB) on boundary conditions in the shadowed region. This work attempts to unify three different propagation mechanisms, i.e., reflection, edge diffraction, and creeping diffraction, by using one formula.
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