Abstract:

The ultimate goal of multimedia displays is to generate a realistic and engaging display of visual, auditory, and/or proprioceptive information that creates a consistent view of the ``rendered'' world. Unfortunately, time delays and inaccuracies in the display system may cause events to be temporally or spatially misaligned across modalities. Even within a single modality, technological constraints may limit the accuracy of the display. If a system is for entertainment, such discrepancies will matter only when they are consciously perceived by the observer. If the display is for command and control applications (for instance, to convey information to an air traffic controller or to the operator of a remotely controlled vehicle), discrepancies matter whenever they decrease performance on the task of interest, especially if such decrements in performance cannot be overcome by training. A series of experiments investigating the degree to which subjects can adapt to discrepancies between normal experience and simulated auditory spatial information suggests that subjects can adapt to such discrepancies; however, the degree to which adaptation affects the ability of the subject to perform spatial tasks depends on the amount and type of spatial discrepancy present in the display. [This work supported by AFOSR.]