Effects of Displays on Visually Controlled Task Performance in Three-Dimensional Virtual Reality Environment

• Published in: Human factors and ergonomics in manufacturing & service industries Vol. 25; no. 5; pp. 523 - 533
• Main Authors: Lin, Chiuhsiang Joe, Chen, Hung-Jen, Cheng, Ping-Yun, Sun, Tien-Lung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2015
• Subjects: 3D TV; Fitts's law; HMD; Projection display; Virtual reality
• ISSN: 1090-8471; 1520-6564
• DOI: 10.1002/hfm.20566

This study aims to evaluate three commercial virtual reality (VR) display devices on the market via a 3D Fitts's task. In addition, a symptom questionnaire was used to assess the severity of cybersickness symptoms induced by these displays. Ten participants performed repetitive pointing tasks over different conditions of varying display devices, movement directions, and indices of difficulty. On the basis of the results, the projection display obtained the best task performance with the lowest movement time and the highest throughput. It had the least symptoms among the three display devices. The HMD gave the worst results in all criteria. The 3D TV could be considered as good as the projection display in task performance but induced slight level of discomfort, fatigue, and eyestrain. These findings not only provided an initial understanding of differences between the 3D TV and the other two familiar display devices in human performance when interacting within a 3D VE but also pointed a direction to effectively improve future VR display technique.