Avi Aizenman and Minqi Wang

Speaker

Avi Aizenman / Minqi Wang
PhD Candidate, Levi / Cooper Lab, UC Berkeley Vision Science Graduate Group

Date and Time

Monday, October 25, 2021
11:10 am - 12:30 pm

Location

Zoom

Avi Aizenman's Abstract

The (un)natural statistics of eye movements and binocular disparities in VR gaming headsets

The human visual system evolved in an environment with many statistical regularities. Binocular vision is adapted to these regularities such that depth perception and binocular eye movements are more precise, faster, and performed with more comfort in environments that are consistent with the regularities. We measured the statistics of eye movements and binocular disparities in VR-gaming environments and found that they are quite different from those in the natural environment. Fixation direction and distance are more restricted in VR. In addition, fixation distance is farther in VR. The pattern of binocular disparity across the visual field is less regular in VR and does not conform to a prominent property of naturally occurring disparities. The disparity pattern makes it more likely to experience double vision in VR-gaming environments. We determined from our fixation statistics the optimal screen distance to minimize discomfort due to the vergence-accommodation conflict.

Minqi Wang's Abstract

Design choices that influence the perception of field of view in stereoscopic augmented reality displays

Near-eye display systems for augmented reality (AR) aim to seamlessly merge virtual content with the user’s view of the real world. A substantial limitation of current systems is that they only present virtual content over a limited portion of the user’s natural field-of-view (FOV). This limitation reduces the immersion and utility of these systems, and thus it is essential to understand how to maximize the perceived quantity and quality of visual field coverage in AR systems. One way to achieve a wider field of view is by implementing partial binocular overlap, in which the virtual FOV contains a combination of binocularly visible and monocularly visible content . This approach, however, can result in undesirable visual artifacts. In a set of perceptual studies, I examine how different amounts and types of binocular overlap in AR influence the perception of content homogeneity across the virtual FOV. These results can aid future designs that optimize FOV coverage and minimize perceptual artifacts in stereoscopic AR systems.