Bees, Birds and Butterflies: Investigating the Influence of Distractors on Visual Attention Guidance Techniques

Authors. Nina Doerr, Katrin Angerbauer, Melissa Reinelt, Michael Sedlmair

Venue. CHI (2023) Extended Abstract

Type. Extended Abstract

Materials. DOI ACM PDF video

Abstract. Visual attention guidance methods direct the viewer’s gaze in immersive environments by visually highlighting elements of interest. The highlighting can be done, for instance, by adding a colored circle around elements, adding animated swarms (HiveFive), or removing objects from one eye in a stereoscopic display (Deadeye). We contribute a controlled user experiment (N=30) comparing these three techniques under the influence of visual distractors, such as bees flying by. Our results show that Circle and HiveFive performed best in terms of task performance and qualitative feedback, and were largely robust against different levels of distractions. Furthermore, we discovered a high mental demand for Deadeye.

@inproceedings{10.1145/3544549.3585816,
    title        = {Bees, Birds and Butterflies: Investigating the Influence of Distractors on Visual Attention Guidance Techniques},
    author       = {Doerr, Nina and Angerbauer, Katrin and Reinelt, Melissa and Sedlmair, Michael},
    year         = {2023},
    booktitle    = {Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
    publisher    = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    series       = {CHI EA '23},
    doi          = {10.1145/3544549.3585816},
    url          = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3585816},
    abstract     = {Visual attention guidance methods direct the viewer's gaze in immersive environments by visually highlighting elements of interest. The highlighting can be done, for instance, by adding a colored circle around elements, adding animated swarms (HiveFive), or removing objects from one eye in a stereoscopic display (Deadeye). We contribute a controlled user experiment (N=30) comparing these three techniques under the influence of visual distractors, such as bees flying by. Our results show that Circle and HiveFive performed best in terms of task performance and qualitative feedback, and were largely robust against different levels of distractions. Furthermore, we discovered a high mental demand for Deadeye.},
    articleno    = {51},
    numpages     = {7},
    keywords     = {perception, visual attention, attention guidance, virtual reality}
}