Mission Impossible Spaces: Using Challenge-Based Distractors to Reduce Noticeability of Self-Overlapping Virtual Architecture

Abstract

Impossible spaces make it possible to maximize the area of virtual environments that can be explored on foot through self-overlapping virtual architecture. This paper details a study exploring how users' ability to detect overlapping virtual architecture is affected when the virtual environment includes distractors that impose additional cognitive load by challenging the users. The results indicate that such distractors both increase self-reported task load and reduce users' ability to reliably detect overlaps between adjacent virtual rooms. That is, rooms could overlap by up to 68% when distractors were presented, compared to 40% when no distractors were present. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; Interaction techniques.

Effects of Virtual Room Size and Objects on Relative Translation Gain Thresholds in Redirected Walking

“…Other studies attempted to explore how the size and layout of physical tracked space influence the performance of redirected walking controllers [3,31]. In terms of visual perception in VR, previous studies stated users' tend to underestimate virtual walking speeds [2,6,10,11] and the presence of distractors in VEs bias the threshold range to be larger [14,15,17,48]. While Nguyen et al [34] reported that a room's dimension does not significantly affect curvature gain thresholds, Kim et al [24] stated that relative translation gain thresholds differ according to the VE size and referred to Messing et al [30] in assuming that this may be induced by the location of the virtual horizon.…”

Body Warping Versus Change Blindness Remapping: A Comparison of Two Approaches to Repurposing Haptic Proxies for Virtual Reality

“…However, it also seems possible that environmental manipulations can be performed inside users' FOV, when visual attention is not focused on the manipulated object [29], or by masking the manipulation using blinks and saccades, as has been done in relation to hand remapping [53]. On the topic of masking, previous work on redirected walking indicates that both passive [35] and active [15] distractors can be used to mask warping of users' movements; and challenge-based distractors, imposing additional cognitive load, may make users less like to notice manipulations of virtual architecture [12]. Thus, it seems relevant for future work to explore how interaction and distraction can be used to mask both body warping and change blindness remapping.…”

The Effects of Spatial Configuration on Relative Translation Gain Thresholds in Redirected Walking

“…Moreover, it is influenced by events occurring in virtual reality space. For example, when performing other tasks while walking, the user's attention was distributed to the task performance, making them less sensitive to changes in their speed (Ciumedean et al, 2020, Gao et al, 2020.…”