Field of View Effect on Distance Perception in Virtual Reality

Recent state-of-the-art Virtual Reality (VR) Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) provide wide Field of Views (FoV) which were not possible in the past. Due to this development, HMD FoVs are now approaching a level that parallels natural human eyesight. Previous efforts have shown that reduced FoVs affect user perception of distance in a given environment, but none have investigated VR HMDs with wide FoVs. Therefore, in this paper we directly investigate the effect of HMD FoV on distance estimation in virtual environments. We performed a user study with 14 participants who performed a blind throwing task wearing a Pimax 5K Plus HMD, in which we virtually restricted the FoV to 200°, 110°, and 60°. We found a significant difference in perceived distance between the 200° and 60° FoVs, as well as between the 110° and 60° FoVs. However, no significant difference was observed between 200° and 110°. Our results indicate that users tend to underestimate distance with the narrower FoV.