Head-Mounted Display with Increased Downward Field of View Improves Presence and Sense of Self-Location

Common existing head-mounted displays (HMDs) for virtual reality (VR) provide users with a high presence and embodiment. However, the field of view (FoV) of a typical HMD for VR is about 90 to 110 [deg] in the diagonal direction and about 70 to 90 [deg] in the vertical direction, which is narrower than that of humans. Specifically, the downward FoV of conventional HMDs is too narrow to present the user avatar's body and feet. To address this problem, we have developed a novel HMD with a pair of additional display units to increase the downward FoV by approximately 60 (10+50) [deg]. We comprehensively investigated the effects of the increased downward FoV on the sense of immersion that includes presence, sense of self-location (SoSL), sense of agency (SoA), and sense of body ownership (SoBO) during VR experience and on patterns of head movements and cybersickness as its secondary effects. As a result, it was clarified that the HMD with an increased FoV improved presence and SoSL. Also, it was confirmed that the user could see the object below with a head movement pattern close to the real behavior, and did not suffer from cybersickness. Moreover, the effect of the increased downward FoV on SoBO and SoA was limited since it was easier to perceive the misalignment between the real and virtual bodies.