Amplifying Head Movements with Head-Mounted Displays

The head-mounted display (HMD) is a popular form of virtual display due to its ability to immerse users visually in virtual environments (VEs). Unfortunately, the user's virtual experience is compromised by the narrow field of view (FOV) it affords, which is less than half that of normal human vision. This paper explores a solution to some of the problems caused by the narrow FOV by amplifying the head movement made by the user when wearing an HMD, so that the view direction changes by a greater amount in the virtual world than it does in the real world. Tests conducted on the technique show a significant improvement in performance on a visual search task, and questionnaire data indicate that the altered visual parameters that the user receives may be preferable to those in the baseline condition in which amplification of movement was not implemented. The tests also show that the user cannot interact normally with the VE if corresponding body movements are not amplified to the same degree as head movements, which may limit the implementation's versatility. Although not suitable for every application, the technique shows promise, and alterations to aspects of the implementation could extend its use in the future.