There Is No First- or Third-Person View in Virtual Reality : Understanding the Perspective Continuum

Hoppe, Matthias and Baumann, Andrea and Tamunjoh, Patrick Chofor and Machulla, Tonja-Katrin and Wozniak, Pawel W. and Schmidt, Albrecht and Welsch, Robin (2022) There Is No First- or Third-Person View in Virtual Reality : Understanding the Perspective Continuum. In: CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems :. ACM, New York, 360:1-360:13. ISBN 9781450391573

Abstract

Modern games make creative use of First- and Third-person perspectives (FPP and TPP) to allow the player to explore virtual worlds. Traditionally, FPP and TPP perspectives are seen as distinct concepts. Yet, Virtual Reality (VR) allows for flexibility in choosing perspectives. We introduce the notion of a perspective continuum in VR, which is technically related to the camera position and conceptually to how users perceive their environment in VR. A perspective continuum enables adapting and manipulating the sense of agency and involvement in the virtual world. This flexibility of perspectives broadens the design space of VR experiences through deliberately manipulating perception. In a study, we explore users’ attitudes, experiences and perceptions while controlling a virtual character from the two known perspectives. Statistical analysis of the empirical results shows the existence of a perspective continuum in VR. Our findings can be used to design experiences based on shifts of perception.