For more than a decade, "presence" has been a key concept for understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) environments. VR researchers have used this term to describe the mental state of the user in response to being immersed in a virtual world, and typically equate presence with a sense of "being in the virtual world" or "a lack of a sense of mediation." Can presence be achieved for augmented reality (AR) systems as well, so that the user loses the sense of mediation and begins to respond to being immersed in a blended physical/virtual experience as if it were a single "world?" The goal of this research is to experimentally evaluate the impact of a range of technical and environmental factors on the quality of AR, so as to replace the beliefs developers wishing to create AR experiences now subscribe to with scientifically-supported guidelines or "rules of thumb" for best practices. To these ends, the PI and his team will explore immersion factors including graphics frame rate and texture quality, registration errors between the physical and virtual worlds, incorrect occlusion of the physical world by the virtual world, and conceptual consistency between the physical and virtual worlds. The research methods will be based on those used by researchers exploring presence in virtual reality (VR); one significant contribution of this work will be the adaptation and evaluation of the methods themselves to AR. The PI will build on the UNC VR "Pit" experiment, which leveraged a strong physiological reaction (fear of heights) to measure of presence, to develop an AR "Pit" experiment that generates similar physiological reactions, and will use it to evaluate the impact of the various immersion factors on the quality of an AR experience. Based on these findings, the PI will develop an AR presence questionnaire, which will then be applied to evaluate more realistic environments such as historic sites.
Broader Impacts: By defining a framework for evaluating AR experiences, the PI will enable AR developers to compare their work using a shared set of tools and vocabulary. Similarly, guidelines for the immersion factors that affect AR experiences will enable non-AR researchers (such as artists and educators) to more effectively explore the medium of AR with an understanding of what they should and should not pay attention to when defining the requirements of new media-rich location-based experiences. The PI envisages that AR will become a powerful tool for informal education and entertainment applications, e.g., in historic areas, where well-designed AR environments have the potential to enhance the educational and emotional experience of a wide demographic of visitors, ranging from inner-city school children to international tourists. The evaluation techniques and development guidelines that will result from this research are critical to the success of such projects.
