Subtle Gaze Direction with Asymmetric Field-of-View Modulation in Headworn Virtual Reality

Virtual reality allows users freedom to interactively look around, but designers sometimes want to encourage attention to certain areas of interest without directly interrupting the user. Our research presents asymmetric changes to field of view in head-worn virtual reality as a means of subtle encouragement of user gaze direction. Preliminary study results indicate this method can induce turning behavior, but viewer reactions may not be consistent. Asymmetric reduction in the visual field can create curiosity and induces movement towards or away from the reduced direction. Preliminary results indicate participants more often looked towards the reduced direction to compensate for what they were missing. Further, some participants were not able to detect field of view modulations.