Multisensory Proximity and Transition Cues for Improving Target Awareness in Narrow Field of View Augmented Reality...

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Augmented Reality Systems
• Multisensory Perception

Background:

• Augmented reality (AR) applications enhance user environments with digital information.
• Limited fields of view (FOV) in AR devices hinder awareness of off-screen or emerging content.
• Visual conflicts like clutter and occlusion are exacerbated in dense information AR spaces.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate multisensory cue combinations for improving awareness of moving out-of-view objects in narrow FOV AR displays.
• To differentiate between proximity cues (spatial awareness) and transition cues (entering FOV).
• To assess user preferences and performance across various cue combinations under different noise conditions.

Main Methods:

• Study 1: Determined user preference for 6 multisensory cue combinations using forced-choice decisions.
• Study 2: Evaluated the 3 most preferred combinations on performance and awareness in a divided attention reaction task.
• Both studies incorporated varying levels of auditory and visual noise.

Main Results:

• Visual-Tactile and Audio-Tactile cue combinations significantly improved reaction times to out-of-view augmentations compared to Visual-Audio.
• Tactile transition cues demonstrated high utility in alerting users to newly appearing information.
• Visual and auditory noise negatively impacted performance when visual proximity cues were used.

Conclusions:

• Multisensory cue combinations, particularly those involving tactile feedback, enhance user awareness and reaction times in AR systems with narrow FOVs.
• Tactile transition cues are highly effective for notifying users of out-of-view object appearances.
• Recommendations are provided for selecting appropriate cue combinations based on specific AR application requirements and environmental noise levels.