VR unseen gaze: inducing feeling of being stared at in virtual reality

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

The main aim of this paper is to investigate a method that can induce a VR user’s feeling of being stared at. Contrary to the previous method that directly informs users of unseen gaze with a voice and subtitles, the proposed method provides an indirect subtle stimulus to induce a feeling that they are being watched. Our study began with the observations reported by the previous studies that the feeling of being stared at appears to be highly correlated with hypervigilance, anxiety, and fear of ambient information around people. To clarify this further, we additionally conducted an online survey. Based on the results of the previous studies and our online survey, we defined two types of factors that may effectively induce the user to feel that they are watched: environmental factors (darkness, absence/presence of people, reddish color palette, and suspenseful background music) and stimulative factors (subtle changes in vision, subtle changes in sound, and feeling in the back of the neck). Afterward, two experiments were conducted for in-depth investigation of environmental and stimulative factors, respectively. The purpose was to find out what kinds of factors should be provided at what strength to induce the user’s feeling of being watched among the defined factors. Lastly, an application test was performed to not only clarify the advantages and limitations of the proposed method but also propose design guidelines for future use. We expect that our study will serve as a cornerstone for providing a new type of VR experience that the feeling of being watched.

Original languageEnglish
JournalVirtual Reality
Volume27
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)1529-1548
Number of pages20
ISSN1359-4338
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2020R1F1A1076528).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature.

    Research areas

  • Feeling of being stared at, Scopaesthesia, Unseen gaze, User interfaces, Virtual reality

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