Goal-Directed Reaching in Real, Augmented, and Virtual Environments

Multi-modal technologies, including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), have become increasingly common in education and training contexts. Despite growing adoption of these technologies, our understanding of how basic perceptual-cognitive processes are influenced or altered by AR and VR mediation remains limited. The present paper describes a pilot study in which participants performed goal-directed reaching movements toward visual illusions in three different mediation conditions: unmediated reality (UR), AR, and VR. This pilot assessed whether the speed-accuracy relationship of reaching movements in different mediation conditions was modulated by contextual information surrounding a target. Preliminary results showed that there was a trend toward an effect of the contextual information in VR, but not in UR or AR. These findings may indicate that movements in VR are generated by different sensorimotor processes than in UR and AR.