Maintaining awareness of real world boundaries whilst being immersed in virtual reality (VR) with head mounted displays (HMDs), is a necessity for the physical integrity of the user. This paper explores whether individual human senses can be allocated to the real and the virtual world and what effect this has on workload, presence, performance and perceived safety. We present the results of a lab study (N=33) where the auditory and haptic sense of participants was trained to be an indicator for real world boundaries, while their visual sense was bound to a VR experience with an HMD. Our results suggests that allocating senses increases workload. However, while performance is comparable to purely visual indications of boundaries, sense allocation seems to improve presence. Participants prefer the signals to be separate or combined subsequently, depending on the priority and proximity to the boundary. This exploratory study is valuable for developers and researchers who want to start including audio and haptic signals as indicators for real world boundaries.

中文翻译：

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VR 的隐形边界：听觉和触觉信号作为现实世界边界的指标


在通过头戴式显示器 (HMD) 沉浸在虚拟现实 (VR) 中的同时保持对现实世界边界的认识，对于用户的身体完整性来说是必要的。本文探讨了人类个体的感官是否可以分配到现实和虚拟世界，以及这对工作负载、存在感、表现和感知安全有何影响。我们展示了一项实验室研究 (N=33) 的结果，其中参与者的听觉和触觉被训​​练为现实世界边界的指示器，而他们的视觉则与 HMD 的 VR 体验绑定。我们的结果表明，分配感官会增加工作量。然而，虽然性能与纯粹的视觉边界指示相当，但感觉分配似乎可以提高临场感。参与者更喜欢随后将信号分开或组合，具体取决于优先级和与边界的接近程度。这项探索性研究对于想要开始将音频和触觉信号作为现实世界边界指示器的开发人员和研究人员来说非常有价值。