Imperceptible Gaze Guidance Through Ocularity in Virtual Reality

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel, imperceptible gaze guidance method in VR using ocularity cues, which attracts attention without disrupting user immersion, demonstrated through eye-tracking experiments.

Contribution

The study introduces a new gaze guidance technique based on ocularity differences that is nearly imperceptible and effective in VR environments.

Findings

Gaze is faster to target when the object is an ocularity singleton.

Background objects as ocularity singletons can distract gaze from the target.

Method maintains immersion while effectively guiding attention.

Abstract

We introduce to VR a novel imperceptible gaze guidance technique from a recent discovery that human gaze can be attracted to a cue that contrasts from the background in its perceptually non-distinctive ocularity, defined as the relative difference between inputs to the two eyes. This cue pops out in the saliency map in the primary visual cortex without being overtly visible. We tested this method in an odd-one-out visual search task using eye tracking with 15 participants in VR. When the target was rendered as an ocularity singleton, participants' gaze was drawn to the target faster. Conversely, when a background object served as the ocularity singleton, it distracted gaze from the target. Since ocularity is nearly imperceptible, our method maintains user immersion while guiding attention without noticeable scene alterations and can render object's depth in 3D scenes, creating new possibilities for immersive user experience across diverse VR applications.