Effects of display lag on vection and presence in the Oculus Rift HMD

Head-mounted display (HMD)-based virtual reality (VR) is ideally suited for presence and generating compelling visual experiences of self-motion, but users can suffer from side effects associated with head-to-display lag. We used the Oculus Rift HMD (consumer release - CV1) to simulate forward self-motion in depth. Observers made continuous yaw head movements at approximately 0.5 Hz or 1.0 Hz while viewing these self-motion simulations. We examined the perceptual effects of increasing the display lag, by adding lag to the baseline lag of the system (estimated to be approximately 5.3 ms or 0.5 frames per second). We found that increasing the head-to-display lag up to 212 ms reduced the presence and the strength of vection. In addition, faster (1.0 Hz) head oscillations were found to generate weaker presence and vection in the virtual environment than the slower (0.5 Hz) head oscillations. We also found that a positive correlation between vection and presence (found previously) persists across a wide range of head-to-display lags, and, increasing lag from a very low baseline level still impaired both experiences. Both vection and presence in virtual environments can therefore be impaired by either increasing head-display lag or making more rapid angular head movements.

Automated summary

Increasing head-to-display lag up to 212 ms was found to reduce the presence and strength of vection in virtual environments. Faster head oscillations (1.0 Hz) generated weaker presence and vection compared to slower head oscillations (0.5 Hz). Additionally, a positive correlation between vection and presence was found across a wide range of head-to-display lags, indicating that both experiences can be impaired by increasing lag or faster head movements.