A Comparison of the Fatigue Progression of Eye-Tracked and Motion-Controlled Interaction in Immersive Space

Eye-tracking enabled virtual reality (VR) headsets have recently become more widely available. This opens up opportunities to incorporate eye gaze interaction methods in VR applications. However, studies on the fatigue-induced performance fluctuations of these new input modalities are scarce and rarely provide a direct comparison with established interaction methods. We conduct a study to compare the selection-interaction performance between commonly used handheld motion control devices and emerging eye interaction technology in VR. We investigate each interaction’s unique fatigue progression pattern in study sessions with ten minutes of continuous engagement. The results support and extend previous findings regarding the progression of fatigue in eye-tracked interaction over prolonged periods. By directly comparing gaze-with motion-controlled interaction, we put the emerging eye-trackers into perspective with the state-of-the-art interaction method for immersive space. We then discuss potential implications for future extended reality (XR) interaction design based on our findings.