A Comparative Study of Virtual Reality and 2D Display Methods in Visual Search in Real Scenes

People perform visual search tasks every day: from trivial tasks to emergencies. Classical research on visual search used artificial stimuli to identify factors that affect search times and accuracy. Recent studies have explored visual search in real scenes by simulating them on two-dimensional displays. The scientific community continues to use new technology to formulate better methods and practices. Virtual reality is a new technology that offers its users immersivity and elicits "real" responses. The purpose of this study is to compare search efficiencies in real scenes on 2-D displays and Virtual Reality. A visual search experiment measuring reaction times and accuracy was conducted to evaluate both methods. Results suggest that visual search in real scenes is significantly faster and more accurate in Virtual Reality than in 2-D Displays. These findings could open up new opportunities for visual search research on real scenes and real life scenarios.