Peripheral visual information and its effect on distance judgments in virtual and augmented environments

A frequently observed problem in medium-field virtual environments is the underestimation of egocentric depth. This problem has been described numerous times and with widely varying degrees of severity, and although there has been considerable progress made in modifying observer behavior to compensate for these misperceptions, the question of why these errors exist is still an open issue. This paper presents the findings of a series of experiments, comprising 103 participants, that attempts to identify and quantify the source of a pattern of adaptation and improved depth judgment accuracy over time scales of less than one hour. Taken together, these experiments suggest that peripheral visual information is an important source of information for the calibration of movement within medium-field virtual environments.