Exploratory Study on User's Dynamic Visual Acuity and Quality Perception of Impaired Images
This addresses quality perception challenges in multimedia and virtual reality systems, but it is incremental as it builds on existing knowledge of visual limitations.
The study investigated how head movement affects visual acuity and quality perception of impaired images, finding a significant decrease in both when the head is not static and indicating how much quality can be reduced without users noticing impairments.
In this paper we assess the impact of head movement on user's visual acuity and their quality perception of impaired images. There are physical limitations on the amount of visual information a person can perceive and physical limitations regarding the speed at which our body, and as a consequence our head, can explore a scene. In these limitations lie fundamental solutions for the communication of multimedia systems. As such, subjects were asked to evaluate the perceptual quality of static images presented on a TV screen while their head was in a dynamic (moving) state. The idea is potentially applicable to virtual reality applications and therefore, we also measured the image quality perception of each subject on a head mounted display. Experiments show the significant decrease in visual acuity and quality perception when the user's head is not static, and give an indication on how much the quality can be reduced without the user noticing any impairments.