Perceiving distance in virtual reality: theoretical insights from contemporary technologies

Abstract

Decades of research have shown that absolute egocentric distance is underestimated in virtual environments (VEs) when compared with the real world. This finding has implications on the use of VEs for applications that require an accurate sense of absolute scale. Fortunately, this underperception of scale can be attenuated by several factors, making perception more similar to (but still not the same as) that of the real world. Here, we examine these factors as two categories: (i) experience inherent to the observer, and (ii) characteristics inherent to the display technology. We analyse how these factors influence the sources of information for absolute distance perception with the goal of understanding how the scale of virtual spaces is calibrated. We identify six types of cues that change with these approaches, contributing both to a theoretical understanding of depth perception in VEs and a call for future research that can benefit from changing technologies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘New approaches to 3D vision’.

Virtual Reality as a Tool to Understand Spatial Navigation

“…Further, known distortions in perception of scale (size and distance) of space exist (Creem-Regehr et al, 2023;Kelly, 2022a;Renner et al, 2013), which could influence the encoding of spaces and the acquisition of spatial knowledge. Cybersickness is an additional limitation, and dropout rate in experiments due to cybersickness is a factor in VR studies of spatial navigation, especially when physical locomotion is not possible (Rebenitsch & Owen, 2016).…”

“…Recent research by Stanney et al, 2020 indicates that limited IPD ranges on HMDs may exclude up to 30% of the female population and that IPD non-fit is a significant factor in cybersickness. Additionally, both weight and FOV of HMDs are implicated in the well-known problem of distance mis-perception in VR (Creem-Regehr et al, 2023;Kelly, 2022b). Finally, proprioceptive and vestibular cues are sometimes available when moving in a virtual environment displayed through an HMD.…”

“…The work discussed above demonstrates a number of experimental manipulations and theoretical contributions for understanding spatial navigation in VR, mostly assuming that the results found using virtual environments generalize to real world behavior. In fact, although there have been numerous studies comparing space perception in real and virtual environments (Creem-Regehr et al, 2023;Kelly, 2022b;Renner et al, 2013), direct comparisons with spatial navigation tasks are relatively scarce. This lack of comparisons is likely because of methodological constraints that led to the choice of VR as a method to begin with, such as the need for traversal over large, controlled environments or manipulations of specific room shapes or features.…”

New Approaches to 3D Vision

“…We have already encountered one such affordance (traversability) in our discussions of robot navigation [ 104 ] and rats navigating 3D mazes [ 12 ]. And Sarah Creem-Regehr's [ 339 ] talk at our meeting focused on affordances in virtual and augmented reality.…”

“…The concern that virtual reality doesn't reflect real-world perception is also shared by two papers in this issue. First, Creem-Regehr, Stefanucci & Bodenheimer [339] show how distances are underestimated in virtual reality, and the strategies that can be used to improve distance perception. Second, Rzepka, Hussey, Maltz, Babin, Wilcox & Culham [370] find that participants rely far more on the familiar size of objects when making distance judgements in virtual reality than they do in the real world.…”