Immersive reading in virtual and augmented reality environment

Purpose - This study aims to investigate immersive reading, which occurs when individuals read text while in a virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) environment. Design/methodology/approach - In Experiment 1, 64 participants read text passages and answered multiple-choice questions in VR and AR head-mounted displays (HMDs) compared with doing the same task on liquid crystal display (LCD). In Experiment 2, 31 participants performed the same reading tasks but with two VR HMDs of different display quality. Findings - Compared with reading on LCD as the baseline, participants reading in VR and AR HMDs got 82% (VR) and 88% (AR) of the information accurately. Participants tended to respond more accurately and faster, though not statistically significant, with the VR HMD of higher pixel density in the speed-reading task. Originality/value - The authors observed the speed and accuracy of reading in VR and AR environments, compared with the reading speed and accuracy on an LCD monitor. The authors also compared the reading performance on two VRHMDs that differed in display quality but were otherwise similar in every way.

Automated summary

This study investigates immersive reading in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) environments compared to reading on a liquid crystal display (LCD). The findings show that participants reading in VR and AR head-mounted displays (HMDs) accurately obtained 82% (VR) and 88% (AR) of the information compared to reading on an LCD. Additionally, participants tended to respond more accurately and faster in speed-reading tasks with a higher pixel density VR HMD, although not statistically significant.