More or less? Improving monocular head mounted display assisted visual search by reducing guidance precision

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Visual Perception
• Augmented Reality

Background:

• Shifting attention between virtual information and the environment incurs a cost.
• Efficient attention-guiding cues minimize processing time and return visits.
• Effective target-location cues are incompatible with peripheral head-mounted displays.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate six attention-directing methods for peripheral head-mounted display (HMD) assisted visual search.
• To identify optimal guiding cues for HMDs that are not suitable for direct target indication.
• To compare the efficiency and user preference of different cue types.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed a visual search task for a singleton target among 299 distractors.
• Six different device-delivered guiding cues were tested.
• Participant search times were recorded to measure cue efficiency.

Main Results:

• A static region map cue demonstrated the highest efficiency and user preference.
• Static and dynamic directional cues were more effective than unguided search.
• Cues relying solely on peripheral vision proved relatively ineffective.

Conclusions:

• Attention guidance for visual search does not require precise target localization.
• Guiding users to the general vicinity of a target is more efficient.
• This finding is applicable to handheld and wearable devices aiding visual search.