The bodily challenges of augmented vision applied to firefighting activity

Abstract

While there is an ever-increasing number of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies that are starting to be used in different fields of activity, few studies have explored their impact on the dimensions perceived by users during their activities. Taking a research project that aims to develop a thermal-imaging AR device for firefighters, we studied the perceptual dimensions at work in an AR-mediated activity. Using an original methodology that combines the anthropotechnological approach with embodied cognition, we studied the role of thermal imaging as it is used today in firefighting interventions and the sensory dynamics involved, before presenting the results of realistic scenarios performed with a prototypical device. These simulations allowed us to observe new forms of behaviour with the device in environments close to reality and to develop hypotheses on the transformation of perceptual dynamics and more broadly of the engagement of bodies in action, generated by augmented vision.