What Can I Do There? Controlling AR Self-Avatars to Better Perceive Affordances of the Real World

This work explores a new usage of Augmented Reality (AR) to extend perception and interaction within physical areas ahead of ourselves. To do so, we propose to detach ourselves from our physical position by creating a controllable “digital copy”; of our body that can be used to navigate in local space from a third-person perspective. With such a viewpoint, we aim to improve our mental representation of distant space and understanding of action possibilities (called affordances), without requiring us to physically enter this space. Our approach relies on AR to virtually integrate the user’s body in remote areas in the form of an avatar. We discuss concrete application scenarios and propose several techniques to manipulate avatars in the third person as a part of a larger conceptual framework. Finally, through a user study employing one of the proposed techniques (puppeteering), we evaluate the validity of using third-person embodiment to extend our perception of the real world to areas outside of our proximal zone. We found that this approach succeeded in enhancing the user’s accuracy and confidence when estimating their action capabilities at distant locations.