Effective use of the periphery in game displays

Abstract

The human eye can perceive visual information with high acuity within a narrow foveal view; outside the foveal view (in the periphery), vision has progressively less resolution, and ability to perceive colour is reduced. In this paper, we argue that game displays can be improved by accounting for the part of the visual field in which information is displayed. We present two games in which information is visually encoded for presentation in the periphery. We conclude that the use of peripheral displays may be an interesting way of improving the challenge and entertainment of games involving rich informational displays.

Measuring cognitive load in practicing arithmetic using educational video games on a shared display

“…Students working in the inner area had a larger number of neighbors and a larger number of objects present on the screen in the case of Ludic interactive activity, which prevented the player from having sufficient cognitive capacity to correctly process information on the screen. This result is consistent with Grad et al (2007) on the use of peripheral vision in video games, which indicate that the peripheral information can worsen the use of technological resources.…”

“…3 and 4). Being visual information, the human eye perceives visual information simultaneously within a focal vision (looking at an object directly, capturing an image on the retina) and beyond (which surrounds the object with a lower resolution) (Grad, Graham, & Stewart, 2007). Thus, the focal information that the students consider while working, is located within their work space, and the rest of the elements in the common display, which are not necessary for the student activity and correspond to peripheral information.…”

“…All this may require a large amount of information to achieve the objectives of the game (Grad et al, 2007); information that on a shared display may create a problem of cognitive overload. Considering that cognitive load is the total amount of mental activity consciously processed to solve a task (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003), all elements present for the player on the display should be considered, because while processing all the information present, the interaction of the player with the game can become difficult (Adinolf & Turkay, 2011).…”

Reducing the negative effects of inconsistencies in networked games

“…The additional objects all moved around the scene at a constant speed and did little to attract the participants' attention. Grad et al [10] have shown that users tend not to notice peripheral information unless it is flashing or animated. Thus, we believe it is likely that the objects we added to the scene did not cause the participants to shift their focus away from the pink ship.…”

SuperVision

“…Peripheral vision is generally considered for display of information that can be detected without a priori focus, in games [13] and other areas of HCI, for example, deliver notifications without disrupting the task in focus [25] (e.g., keeping the eyes on the road while driving [18]). Recently, Luyten et al proposed a near-eye display for presentation of peripheral information that is positioned relative to the user's eyes such that it is impossible to focus on it [28].…”