Influence of Dynamic Field of View Restrictions on Rotation Gain Perception in Virtual Environments

Abstract

The perception of rotation gain, defined as a modification of the virtual rotation with respect to the real rotation, has been widely studied to determine detection thresholds and widely applied to redirected navigation techniques. In contrast, Field of View (FoV) restrictions have been explored in virtual reality as a mitigation strategy for motion sickness, although they can alter user’s perception and navigation performance in virtual environments. This paper explores whether the use of dynamic FoV manipulations, referred also as vignetting, could alter the perception of rotation gains during virtual rotations in virtual environments (VEs). We conducted a study to estimate and compare perceptual thresholds of rotation gains while varying the vignetting type (no vignetting, horizontal and global vignetting) and the vignetting effect (luminance or blur). 24 Participants performed 60 or 90∘ virtual rotations in a virtual forest, with different rotation gains applied. Participants have to choose whether or not the virtual rotation was greater than the physical one. Results showed that the point of subjective equality was different across the vignetting types, but not across the vignetting effect or the turns. Subjective questionnaires indicated that vignetting seems less comfortable than the baseline condition to perform the task. We discuss the applications of such results to improve the design of vignetting for redirection techniques.