The Effect of Head Tracking on the Degree of Presence in Virtual Reality

The performance of a virtual reality (VR) system can be assessed from two aspects in the human-VR interaction loop. One aspect is the degree of immersion, which objectively quantifies the performance of the VR system using metrics such as the display field of view or the refresh rate. The other aspect is presence, which measures the user response to the VR system. This article presents a study that compares the impact on presence by changing immersion through enabling and disabling of the head tracking ability on a VR headset. The study quantitatively assesses this change by taking objective measurements of posture and subjective ratings of the VR experience, in terms of presence and motion sickness, after participants have gone through two versions of a roller coaster simulation; one with head tracking on and the other with head tracking off. The results indicate that a loss of immersion, caused by turning the head tracking feature off, results in a significant reduction in postural sway. This loss of immersion also affected presence, as shown through the user surveys. The survey responses indicate that the simulation with head tracking off was less enjoyable and caused more motion sickness compared to when head tracking is kept on.