Thinking Outside the Lab: VR Size & Depth Perception in the Wild

Fig. 1. We conducted a remote unsupervised “in-the-wild” study to understand size and egocentric distance perception in VR using a gamified methodology (a). Our 60-participant study spanned 19 countries and 11 different HMDs (b). The summary of the two perceptual matching tasks is shown here (c): distance bisection judgements show a trend of nonlinear distance foreshortening (top) while size matching judgements suggest neither foreshortening nor anti-foreshortening (bottom). These measurements can inform “distance correction” functions that help improve user performance in applications such as VR flight simulators and games such as Beat Saber (d). © ICAROS (top) and Beat Games (bottom).

[1]  A. S. Gilinsky Perceived size and distance in visual space. , 1951, Psychological review.

[2]  Ian Oakley,et al.  Stereoscopic egocentric distance perception: the impact of eye height and display devices , 2013, SAP.

[3]  Alfred H. Holway,et al.  Determinants of Apparent Visual Size with Distance Variant , 1941 .

[4]  Jack M. Loomis,et al.  Absolute motion parallax weakly determines visual scale in real and virtual environments , 1995, Electronic Imaging.

[5]  Jack M. Loomis,et al.  Visual perception of egocentric distance in real and virtual environments. , 2003 .

[6]  Paul Sharkey,et al.  Estimation of Distances in Virtual Environments Using Size Constancy , 2009, Int. J. Virtual Real..

[7]  J. Loomis,et al.  Visual space perception and visually directed action. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[8]  N. Jenkin Effects of varied distance on short-range size judgments. , 1957, Journal of experimental psychology.

[9]  Mark T. Bolas,et al.  Comparability of narrow and wide field-of-view head-mounted displays for medium-field distance judgments , 2012, SAP.

[10]  Takeo Igarashi,et al.  Crowd-powered parameter analysis for visual design exploration , 2014, UIST.

[11]  Kasper Hornbæk,et al.  Virtual reality studies outside the laboratory , 2017, VRST.

[12]  J S Tittle,et al.  The visual perception of three-dimensional length. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[13]  M. Wagner,et al.  The geometries of visual space , 2006 .

[14]  J. Philbeck,et al.  Comparison of two indicators of perceived egocentric distance under full-cue and reduced-cue conditions. , 1997, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[15]  W. Epstein Attitudes of judgment and the size-distance invariance hypothesis. , 1963 .

[16]  José Antonio Aznar-Casanova,et al.  [On the metric of visual space]. , 2006, Arquivos brasileiros de oftalmologia.

[17]  Boris M. Velichkovsky,et al.  The perception of egocentric distances in virtual environments - A review , 2013, ACM Comput. Surv..

[18]  J. Lappin,et al.  Environmental context influences visually perceived distance , 2006, Perception & psychophysics.

[19]  Jorge Gonçalves,et al.  Gamification of Mobile Experience Sampling Improves Data Quality and Quantity , 2017, Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol..

[20]  Michael S. Bernstein,et al.  A Glimpse Far into the Future: Understanding Long-term Crowd Worker Quality , 2016, CSCW.

[21]  Anatole Lécuyer,et al.  Virtual Objects Look Farther on the Sides: The Anisotropy of Distance Perception in Virtual Reality , 2019, 2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR).

[22]  Thomas F. Coleman,et al.  An Interior Trust Region Approach for Nonlinear Minimization Subject to Bounds , 1993, SIAM J. Optim..

[23]  Carlos Velasco,et al.  Conducting perception research over the internet: a tutorial review , 2015, PeerJ.

[24]  Mark Wagner,et al.  Sensory and Cognitive Explanations for a Century of Size Constancy Research , 2012 .

[25]  Helen E. Ross,et al.  Levels of Processing in the Size-Distance Paradox , 2003 .

[26]  William Epstein,et al.  Size and distance judgments under reduced conditions of viewing , 1969 .

[27]  A. Fitzgibbon,et al.  Humans Ignore Motion and Stereo Cues in Favor of a Fictional Stable World , 2006, Current Biology.

[28]  Katharina Reinecke,et al.  LabintheWild: Conducting Large-Scale Online Experiments With Uncompensated Samples , 2015, CSCW.

[29]  M. Lazarides Perceiving depth , 1991, Nature.

[30]  Katharina Reinecke,et al.  Crowdsourcing performance evaluations of user interfaces , 2013, CHI.

[31]  Paul B Hibbard,et al.  Size and shape constancy in consumer virtual reality , 2020, Behavior Research Methods.

[32]  Xiao Ma,et al.  Web-Based VR Experiments Powered by the Crowd , 2018, WWW.

[33]  Yuki Yamada,et al.  Crowdsourcing visual perception experiments: a case of contrast threshold , 2019, PeerJ.

[34]  Takeo Igarashi,et al.  Sequential line search for efficient visual design optimization by crowds , 2017, ACM Trans. Graph..

[35]  John M Foley,et al.  Visual perception of extent and the geometry of visual space , 2004, Vision Research.

[36]  Uwe Kloos,et al.  The influence of eye height and avatars on egocentric distance estimates in immersive virtual environments , 2011, APGV '11.

[37]  G P Bingham,et al.  Accommodation, occlusion, and disparity matching are used to guide reaching: a comparison of actual versus virtual environments. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[38]  Timothy P. McNamara,et al.  Distance estimation in virtual and real environments using bisection , 2007, APGV.

[39]  H. Kaneko,et al.  Perceived Angular and Linear Size: The Role of Binocular Disparity and Visual Surround , 1997, Perception.

[40]  Ryad Chellali,et al.  Depth discrimination of constant angular size stimuli in action space: role of accommodation and convergence cues , 2015, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[41]  Chris Dede,et al.  Many ways to walk a mile in another's moccasins: Type of social perspective taking and its effect on negotiation outcomes , 2015, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[42]  S. Edney,et al.  Does gamification increase engagement with online programs? A systematic review , 2017, PloS one.

[43]  Thomas A. DeFanti,et al.  Size-Constancy in the CAVE , 2007, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[44]  I. Howard Other mechanisms of depth perception , 2012 .

[45]  Vickie Curtis,et al.  Motivation to Participate in an Online Citizen Science Game , 2015 .

[46]  Walter C. Gogel,et al.  Familiar size and the theory of off-sized perceptions , 1987, Perception & psychophysics.

[47]  Hiroyuki Iida,et al.  Analyzing Gamification of "Duolingo" with Focus on Its Course Structure , 2016, GALA.

[48]  Geb Thomas,et al.  Surface Textures Improve the Robustness of Stereoscopic Depth Cues , 2002, Hum. Factors.

[49]  Robert G. Eggleston,et al.  Virtual reality system effects on size-distance judgements in a virtual environment , 1996, Proceedings of the IEEE 1996 Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium.

[50]  Gerd Bruder,et al.  Tuning Self-Motion Perception in Virtual Reality with Visual Illusions , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[51]  Phuoc Tran-Gia,et al.  Cost-Optimal Validation Mechanisms and Cheat-Detection for Crowdsourcing Platforms , 2011, 2011 Fifth International Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing.

[52]  Nan-Ching Tai,et al.  Daylighting and Its Impact on Depth Perception in a Daylit Space , 2012 .

[53]  H. Gruber The relation of perceived size to perceived distance. , 1954, The American journal of psychology.

[54]  E. Gibson,et al.  Distance judgment by the method of fractionation. , 1955, Journal of experimental psychology.

[55]  Carol Galais Causes and consequences of cheating in online surveys , 2014 .

[56]  J. Rieser,et al.  Visual Perception and the Guidance of Locomotion without Vision to Previously Seen Targets , 1990, Perception.

[57]  Kai Kunze,et al.  MazeRunVR: An Open Benchmark for VR Locomotion Performance, Preference and Sickness in the Wild , 2020, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[58]  Bernd Huber,et al.  Conducting online virtual environment experiments with uncompensated, unsupervised samples , 2020, PloS one.

[59]  Gerd Bruder,et al.  Analyzing effects of geometric rendering parameters on size and distance estimation in on-axis stereographics , 2012, SAP.

[60]  Brendan T. O'Connor,et al.  Cheap and Fast – But is it Good? Evaluating Non-Expert Annotations for Natural Language Tasks , 2008, EMNLP.

[61]  William M. Smith A Methodological Study of Size-Distance Perception , 1953 .

[62]  Kay Stanney,et al.  Virtual Reality Is Sexist: But It Does Not Have to Be , 2020, Frontiers in Robotics and AI.

[63]  J. Philbeck,et al.  Visual Perception of Location and Distance , 1996 .

[64]  David M. Hoffman,et al.  Vergence-accommodation conflicts hinder visual performance and cause visual fatigue. , 2008, Journal of vision.

[65]  R. Toye,et al.  The effect of viewing position on the perceived layout of space , 1986, Perception & psychophysics.

[66]  W. Epstein,et al.  The current status of the size-distance hypotheses. , 1961, Psychological bulletin.

[67]  R N Haber,et al.  The independence of size perception and distance perception , 2001, Perception & psychophysics.

[68]  D W Eby,et al.  The Perceptual Flattening of Three-Dimensional Scenes Enclosed by a Frame , 1995, Perception.

[69]  Siddharth Suri,et al.  Conducting behavioral research on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk , 2010, Behavior research methods.

[70]  Ken Perlin,et al.  Improving noise , 2002, SIGGRAPH.

[71]  Jonathan W. Kelly,et al.  Perceived Space in the HTC Vive , 2017, ACM Trans. Appl. Percept..

[72]  Peter Willemsen,et al.  Effects of Stereo Viewing Conditions on Distance Perception in Virtual Environments , 2008, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[73]  David Swapp,et al.  An ‘In the Wild’ Experiment on Presence and Embodiment using Consumer Virtual Reality Equipment , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.