Modulating Perceived Affordances in Augmented Reality Through Object Physicality and Thermal Appearance

In Augmented Reality (AR), users interact with objects whose visual appearance can be decoupled from their physical properties. This can create a discrepancy between the actions enabled by the AR system and the actions users perceive as possible, commonly referred to as perceived affordances. While AR overlays virtual content onto real environments or objects, it remains unclear how such augmented visual information shapes perceived affordances during interaction with virtual objects or real objects augmented with virtual effects. To address this question, a 2×4 within-subjects study was conducted with 32 participants, who were asked to grasp and move a cup under different object modalities (real, virtual) and visual content conditions (empty, neutral, hot, cold). Kinematic measures of reaching and grasping behavior were analyzed to assess how visual information related to object physicality and content representation influences movement. Results show that augmented visual cues, particularly liquid and thermal appearances, produced different patterns across the two object modalities during the pre-grasp phase of movement. Although the task remained identical across conditions, systematic variations were observed in both reaching and grasping phases depending on the visual characteristics of the object. These findings demonstrate that visual cues in AR can consistently modulate interaction kinematics, providing insight into how perceived affordances are shaped in augmented environments and informing the design of AR systems that leverage visual cues to guide physical interaction.