The applicability of eye-controlled highlighting to the field of visual searching

Using eye-controlled highlighting techniques to support both serial and parallel processing in visual search

Recent research has developed two eye-controlled highlighting techniques, namely, block highlight display (BHD) and single highlight display (SHD), that enhance information presentation based on a user's current gaze position. The present research aimed to investigate how these techniques facilitate mental processing of users' visual search in high information-density visual environments. In Experiment 1, 60 participants performed 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-icon visual search tasks. The search times significantly increased as the number of icons increased with the SHD but not with the BHD. In Experiment 2, 40 participants performed a 49-icon visual search task. The search time was faster, and the fixation spatial density was lower with the BHD than with the SHD. These results suggested that the BHD supported parallel processing in the highlighted area and serial processing in the broader display area; thus, the BHD improved search performance compared to the SHD, which primarily supported serial processing.

Effect of spatial enhancement technology on input through the keyboard in virtual reality environment

Scientific developments have enabled the application of virtual reality (VR) technology in various fields. However, this technology is disadvantaged by low recognition, existence of bias, lack of precision, and fatigue of text input in VR environments. To address these problems, this study proposed a spatial enhancement technique. This study investigated the effectiveness of spatial enhancement keys of a virtual keyboard from various angles and explored the impact of enhanced response time and enhanced protrusion distance on the spatial enhancement technology. Finally, the following conclusions are obtained: (1) The average text input performance of the keyboard using the spatial enhancement technique is significantly better than that of the ordinary virtual keyboard without using the spatial enhancement technique. (2) The recommended time interval for enhanced response time and the protrusion distance are 0-100 ms and 1.85 diopter, respectively. The keyboard angle insignificantly affects the input through the keyboard performance.