Prolonged exposure to mixed reality alters task performance in the unmediated environment

Area of Science:

• Human-computer interaction
• Sensorimotor adaptation
• Virtual and augmented reality

Background:

• Mixed reality (MR) technologies, including virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), offer potential for advanced training in fields like medicine and sports.
• However, the impact of repeated MR task performance on subsequent real-world physical task execution remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether performing visually-guided manual movements in VR or AR affects performance in similar physical tasks.
• To determine if sensorimotor biases introduced by MR environments transfer to the physical world.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed visually-guided manual pointing movements in a physical environment.
• Participants then spent one hour performing similar movements in either VR or AR.
• Post-exposure, participants repeated the physical pointing task to assess transfer effects.

Main Results:

• Movements in VR were shorter, and movements in AR were longer than the actual Euclidean distance, attributed to MR headset perceptual geometry.
• Sensorimotor biases from VR (undershooting) and AR (overshooting) persisted in the subsequent physical pointing task.

Conclusions:

• Exposure to MR environments can induce sensorimotor biases that transfer to the physical world.
• Careful consideration of MR-based training is necessary due to potential negative impacts on performance accuracy and skill transfer from MR to the unencumbered physical (UR) environment.