Cognitive Aid Design Using Diminished Reality to Support Selective Attention by Reducing Distraction.

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Reality
• Extended Reality

Background:

• Extended reality (XR) enables manipulation of sensory input, offering potential to mitigate performance decrements caused by environmental distractions.
• Existing research confirms distractions negatively impact performance, but the specific effects of XR-based distraction removal remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of computationally diminishing reality on task performance, environmental awareness, and subjective workload.
• To compare the effects of universal versus context-aware diminished reality interventions.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted using a novel, demanding assembly task within a virtual reality (VR) environment.
• Participants included STEM graduate students and Johnson Space Center employees, assigned to either a full distraction control or a diminished reality (DR) condition.
• DR conditions involved either universal attenuation of distractions or context-aware filtering of non-task elements and unimportant audio.

Main Results:

• Both experiments demonstrated that diminished reality (DR) aids can significantly lower subjective workload.
• The STEM graduate student sample exhibited improved performance and environmental awareness with DR aids.
• The Johnson Space Center professional sample showed no significant performance differences, and awareness results were mixed across both samples.

Conclusions:

• Diminished reality (DR) interventions can yield outcomes comparable to complete distraction removal.
• Further research is necessary to elucidate the optimal design of distraction removal strategies in relation to specific task demands.
• Findings support the development of DR as a class of XR aids for managing attentional resources.