Perception in Augmented Reality

Many AR applications have an important depth component, and AR displays do not display the depth of virtual objects with the same fidelity as real objects. Furthermore, the unique AR capability of *x-ray vision*, which affords many very compelling and interesting applications, has no perceptual equivalent in the real world. In this talk, I will discuss how we might measure AR depth perception at *near-field* distances; that is, distances where objects may be touched and manipulated by the hands. I will further discuss how depth perception has been measured by vision scientists historically, and I will talk about the small number of previous experiments that have examined near-field AR depth perception. I will then cover a number of near-field AR depth perception experiments that have been conducted in my laboratory. To date, these experiments show that a mismatch between focal depth and stereo disparity, which many AR display systems exhibit, causes systematic depth judgment errors. I will also discuss effects of perceptual feedback and perceptual learning, which to date have barely been studied in AR, but which are likely very important for compelling near-field AR applications such as medical and industrial tasks, where users are highly skilled and highly practiced. --- Dr. J. Edward Swan II is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and an Adjunct Professor of Psychology, at Mississippi State University. He holds a B.S. (1988) degree in computer science from Auburn University and M.S. (1992) and Ph.D. (1997) degrees in computer science from Ohio State University, where he studied computer graphics and human-computer interaction. Before joining Mississippi State University in 2004, Dr. Swan spent seven years as a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Dr. Swan's research has been broad-based, centering on the topics of augmented and virtual reality, perception, human-computer interaction, human factors, empirical methods, computer graphics, and visualization. Currently, Dr. Swan is studying perception in augmented and virtual reality, including depth and layout perception and depth presentation methods, as well as empirical techniques for evaluating and validating visualizations. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the Office of Naval Research. Dr. Swan is a member of ACM, IEEE, the IEEE Computer Society, and ASEE.