Read more in our paper: ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/doc...
pre-print / no paywall: sreal.ucf.edu/wp-content/u...

Or watch me present it at this past IEEE ISMAR: youtu.be/035v6yzO_O0?...

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Some ideas for future work: How do interactive transitions (e.g., guided tasks, subtle movement cues) impact cognitive residue? Can we shrink the time required to clear users' minds by distracting them a certain way (e.g., encouraging more exploration or movement)? 🔭

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While this study is a bit future-looking, one scenario where this may already matter is within-subjects VR experiments where participants experience multiple virtual envs back-to-back. And, consider how spatial residue of a user's physical environment might affect them after entering VR. 🤔

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Design implications for VR in task-switching contexts:

When reducing cognitive residue is a priority, longer transitions (60s) may be beneficial. A nature scene is a good option for engaging intermediate content that helps shift user focus.

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On subjective questionnaires, participants rated nature scene transitions higher in Attractiveness and Hedonic qualities, meaning they were perceived as more visually appealing and stimulating. This was true even for the 60s version, suggesting users tolerated them despite their longer duration.

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Key finding 2: We also analyzed users' motion and found that during the nature scene transitions, greater head rotation correlated with lower spatial residue, suggesting active exploration helps users disengage from their previous environment.

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Key finding 1:⏳60s transitions reduced spatial cognitive residue more than an instant cut. Users recalled object locations from their previous environment less accurately, indicating a reduction in residual memory effects.

(here, we are shooting for less residue == more error)

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Our study (N=24) tested four transitions with two kinds of visual content and two durations (+ a baseline):

- Instantaneous cut (baseline)
- Fade-to-black (20s & 60s)
- Nature scene (20s & 60s)

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We measured spatial memory recall to assess how much information from a previous VR environment stayed with users. After transitioning to a new environment, participants had to point to where they remembered objects from the previous env being (relative to their new orientation).

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🔍 In a future in which people are using XR devices for more purposes and for longer durations, they will regularly switch between tasks and environments. So, we wanted to see how cognitive residue might work in a spatial sense.

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When switching tasks, people can experience cognitive residue 🧠 where some cognitive resources like attention and memory remain devoted to the previous task even after moving on. This can lead to decreased performance on the following task because your mind is "stuck in the past." 

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3D User Interfaces by Bowman et al. I think the structure of this book is quite coherent and holds up, i.e., it is easy to fill in more recent work to its taxonomy.

- Musical Bodies, Musical Minds: Enactive Cognitive Science and the Meaning of Human Musicality
- The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together

I research AR/VR UI/UX, mostly studying cross-reality interactions and transitions for the near future where we spatially compute and collaborate in/through/with/across all kinds of devices and realities.