Impact of Background, Foreground, and Manipulated Object Rendering on Egocentric Depth Perception in Virtual and...

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Computer Graphics
• Perception Psychology

Background:

• Egocentric depth perception is crucial for navigating virtual and augmented environments.
• Visual congruence, the similarity of rendering parameters, is a key factor influencing depth perception.
• Understanding these factors is vital for developing realistic and intuitive immersive experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of visual congruence between foreground and background objects on egocentric depth perception.
• To compare depth perception accuracy in fully virtual versus mixed reality environments.
• To determine how realism and congruence influence distance estimation in indoor virtual and augmented settings.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted involving participants adjusting the depth of a virtual sphere to match a target peg.
• Experiment 1: Both sphere and peg were virtual.
• Experiment 2: Sphere was virtual, peg was real, with realistic backgrounds and depth cues applied.

Main Results:

• Depth perception accuracy was significantly influenced by the realism and congruence of virtual/real objects and backgrounds.
• Realistic backgrounds in Experiment 1 led to depth overestimation, while virtual backgrounds caused underestimation.
• In Experiment 2, realistic foreground targets in an augmented reality setting resulted in underestimation and improved accuracy.

Conclusions:

• Visual congruence plays a critical role in modulating egocentric distance estimation in virtual and augmented environments.
• The underestimation effect observed in augmented reality is linked to the increased graphical fidelity of foreground targets and backgrounds.
• Findings highlight the importance of rendering consistency for accurate depth perception in immersive technologies.