Social Presence Outside the Augmented Reality Field of View

Abstract

Augmented reality headsets in use today have a large area in which the real world can be seen, but virtual content cannot be displayed. Users perceptions of content in this area is not well understood. This work studies participants perception of a virtual character in this area by grounding this question in relevant theories of perception and performing a study using both behavioral and self-report measures. We find that virtual characters within the augmented periphery receive lower social presence scores, but we do notfind a difference in task performance. These findings inform application design and encourage future work in theories of AR perception and perception of virtual humans.