Not all Pedestrians Are the Same: Effects of Real-World Pedestrian Visualization on Intent Recognition and Task...

Users wearing head-mounted displays in immersive virtual reality (VR) often lose awareness of people in the surrounding physical environment. This reduced awareness can lead to safety issues, such as collisions with pedestrians, as well as missed opportunities for real-world interaction. Prior work has attempted to notify VR users of nearby people through auditory alarms or by switching to passthrough views, but these approaches can disrupt immersion and interfere with ongoing tasks. Moreover, existing work rarely considers pedestrians' interaction intent, and visualizing all pedestrians indiscriminately may introduce unnecessary distraction during VR tasks. We investigate how pedestrians with different intents-those likely to interact with the user (Interactors), those who remain nearby without interacting (Bystanders), and those who merely pass by (Passersby)-should be visualized within the virtual environment. We conducted a user study manipulating pedestrian intent, visualization method (shape: Humanoid vs. Capsule; transparency: Opaque vs. Translucent), and task distance (Near vs. Far). Our results show that humanoid representations improved participants' ability to identify pedestrian intent but also increased distraction and frustration compared to capsule representations. However, this trade-off was intent-dependent: capsule representations, which convey limited social cues, interfered more with task engagement for Bystanders and Interactors, whereas humanoid representations were more disruptive for Passersby. Based on these findings, we propose intent-dependent visualization strategies to preserve users' task engagement: humanoid representations for pedestrians likely to interact with the user or stand close (Interactors and Bystanders), and capsule representations for pedestrians who are merely passing by (Passersby). This work highlights the importance of designing intent-aware visualizations of real-world pedestrians in immersive VR environments to balance situational awareness and task distraction.