Towards a comparative evaluation of visually guided physical reach motions during 3D interactions in real and virtual environments

In an initial study, we characterize the properties of human reach motion with and without visual guidance in real and virtual worlds in interaction space. We aim to understand how the perceptual characteristics between real and virtual worlds affect physical reaches during 3D interaction. Typically, participants spatially reach to the perceived location of objects in 3D to perform selection and manipulation activities. These physical reach motions include those of virtual assembly tasks or rehabilitation exercises in which the participants only have approximate perceptual information in the virtual world compared to the real world situation due to technological limitations such as minimal visual field of view and resolution as well as latency and jitter associated with physical movements. In this poster, we try to understand how the motor responses of participants differ between visually guided versus non-visually guided situations. We compared and contrasted the motor component of 3D interaction between the virtual and physical world by investigating factors such as accuracy and velocity of each reaching task.