Effects of field of view on balance in an immersive environment

With technological progress, wide field-of-view (FOV) displays will become increasingly common. Wide FOVs provide a more immersive environment and produce stronger self-motion perception. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between FOV and scene content on postural stability in an immersive environment. 10 subjects were tested using two different scenes (a simple radial pattern and a "meaningful" city scene) at six FOVs (30°, 60°, 90°, 120°, 150°, 180°) using a within-subjects design. Subjects exhibited more postural disturbance with increasing FOV. A surprisingly large increase in disturbance was found for the interval between 150° and 180° using the city scene. No statistically significant difference was found for effects of scene content. Two groups (postural stable group and postural unstable group) were identified during experiment. These groups performed differently in the two scene conditions. Future research plans are described in the Discussion.