Zoom Colloquium: The (Un)natural Statistics of Eye Movements and Binocular Disparities in VR Gaming Headsets

Abstract - The human visual system evolved in an environment with many statistical regularities. Binocular vision is adapted to these regularities such that depth perception and binocular eye movements are more precise, faster, and performed with more comfort in environments that are consistent with the regularities. We measured the statistics of eye movements and binocular disparities in natural and VR-gaming environments and found that they are quite different from one another. Fixation direction and distance are more restricted in VR. In addition, fixation distance is farther in VR. The pattern of binocular disparity across the visual field is less regular in VR and does not conform to a prominent property of naturally occurring disparities. The disparity pattern makes it more likely to experience double vision in VR-gaming environments. We determined from our fixation statistics the optimal screen distance to minimize discomfort due to the vergence-accommodation conflict.
https://vision.berkeley.edu/people/avigael-aizenman/
Improving Zoom accessibility for people with hearing impairments People with hearing impairments often use lipreading and speechreading to improve speech comprehension. This approach is helpful but only works if the speaker’s face and mouth are clearly visible. For the benefit of people with hearing impairments on Zoom calls, please enable your device’s camera whenever you are speaking on Zoom, and face the camera while you speak. (Feel free to disable your camera when you aren’t speaking.)