Abstract
Previous studies have shown that the perceived distance between two points in a display can be "warped" by the presence of bounding objects, making the bounded points appear further away than they actually are. These studies have traditionally been limited to simple 2D displays requiring a single manual response type. We examined how this effect translates to natural experience by using 3-dimensional objects in a virtual reality environment, and by manipulating response mode to determine their effects on illusory strength. Participants wore an Oculus Rift CV1 virtual reality headset and were instructed to match the distance between their set of dots and a secondary set of static dots under multiple viewing conditions (no object, bounding object, partially occluded bounding object, separate bounding objects for each point). The distance between the static dots could be a small or large and the viewer's distance could be either 1 meter away from the stimuli or 6 meters away. Response modality was manipulated using either a mouse wheel or the Oculus Touch controller with motion tracking. The results indicate that while object-based warping does occur in a similar fashion in 3D, there is considerable variability in performance across conditions and response types relative to standard 2D displays. The strength of the effect was reduced with occluders and with Oculus touch response relative to mouse response (less of an illusion with touch). These results both replicate and extend initial demonstrations of the warping illusion and provide insight into the perceptual vs. response-based contributions to the illusion
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018