Frontiers in Virtual Reality (Mar 2022)

Distance Perception in the Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2

  • Jonathan W. Kelly,
  • Taylor A. Doty,
  • Morgan Ambourn,
  • Lucia A. Cherep

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.850471
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3

Abstract

Read online

Distances in virtual environments (VEs) viewed on a head-mounted display (HMD) are typically underperceived relative to the intended distance. This paper presents an experiment comparing perceived egocentric distance in a real environment with that in a matched VE presented in the Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2. Participants made verbal judgments and blind walking judgments to an object on the ground. Both the Quest and Quest 2 produced underperception. Verbal judgments in the VE were 82% and 75% of the object distance, in contrast with real world judgments that were 94% of the object distance. Blind walking judgments were 68% and 70% of object distance in the Quest and Quest 2, respectively, compared to 88% in the real world. This project shows that significant underperception of distance persists even in modern HMDs.

Keywords