Written by Jane & Vilma
Augmented reality (AR) is not yet a part of our everyday lives but in
the future, it could be. The devices that could mix reality with added
superimposed computer-generated images could really change how we see the
world. One example of augmented reality hitting the markets is Pokemón Go. The
excitement around it was huge. Pokemóns appearing in the real-life scenes
caught people’s attention. In some cases, the application has been even too
attracting by guiding the attention to game so deeply that users have not payed
attention to their surroundings.
As presented on the
second lecture of the Psychology of Pervasive Computing -course, attention
works either automatically or selectively. Some stimulus might not affect
person’s attention as much as the others because human brain cannot process all
the stimulus’ coming from the surroundings. Attention can be also divided for
example if sensing is happening via two different senses. Person could be for
example doing a task and receive voice instructions at the same time. It is
interesting how the attention can be divided by using glasses that provide
additional information on the user’s view. For example, Microsoft’s HoloLens provide promising solutions for workers of different fields by adding
useful holograms to user’s view. Example of objects in the augmented reality here.
Of course, there are also many challenges with AR like safety,
information security and critical thinking. Another aspect is multitasking.
Nowadays we have two or more tasks to do at the same time, for example we can use
different types of media, have many softwares on our desktops or eat, handle
phone and listen news. However, multitasking gets new dimensions, because AR
makes us work in two realities. We can get a large amount of information
(messages, weather, health, adds, etc.) in front of our eyes all the time and
we can “look forward” instead of the mobile phone screens. It’s a challenge to
develop technology which doesn’t show too much information and filter the best
information selected by AR user. We can also mix up our realities and don’t
understand what is real life behind AR. However, limitation of attention plays
a key role in multitasking with AR. We are not so effective while multitasking
(especially in complex tasks) and we can make more errors.
AR could change our learning, teaching, introduction to new work and
daily life (see more here). For example teaching
anatomy in medicine as visualized here. We can also design and
try things before buying them. When teaching complex tasks in a practical way
by AR, learners can remember and learn in a faster and deeper way.
Additionally, it’s also stated that AR increases our compassion when we can
”travel” to any state. We have already some applications in our mobile phones,
for example we can get additional information about variety of objects.
However, there are still few more questions to discuss. How our
interaction will change when we use AR? And how our whole thinking processes
and cognitive skills will change? It’s also interesting what AR makes to our
senses, when we see visualizations of objects and they differ from reality.
It’s exiting to wait and see what kind of world and possibilities we’ll have
with AR in the future.
Sources:
·
Aino Ahtinen and Aparajita Chowdhury, “Psychology of Pervasive Computing”, Lecture 2, 3.9.2018, Tampere University of
Technology.
·
The Ultimate Guide to Augmented Reality (AR) Technology, https://www.realitytechnologies.com/augmented-reality/
·
Microsoft HoloLens, https://www.microsoft.com/fi-fi/hololens
·
Wallis,
C. The Multitasking generation, 2006,
http://www.fritzhubbard.org/words/The_Multitasking_Generation.pdf
Different perspectives to AR:
·
TEDx Talks. Will virtual
and augmented reality move us into the knowledge age? | Zenka |
TEDxJacksonHole, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FA-IuDTMjE
·
CNBC
Life. The future of augmented reality | Marketing Media Money, 2018,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ByG28u6aI
·
Google
Developers. What's new in AR (Google I/O '18), 2018,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeZcQguH124
·
Oxedo.
Top 5 Awesome AR Smart glasses 2018 – 2019, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmNHCZoGcLI
The subject of the post asks if AR is overloading cognitive capacity. There is AR technology for cars called head up display (HUD), not too widely used yet. The idea with car HUD is that you can display virtual content on the windshield of the car e.g. the speedometer and other useful information for the driver. This means the driver can concentrate more on looking where he's driving. This itself probably decrease the cognitive load of the driver. With car HUDs it’s also possible to highlight objects important for the driver e.g. the lines on the street and in the road or even pedestrians. This helps the driver to notice and to concentrate on what’s important at the moment and this should decrease the cognitive load. Of course it’s important to only highlight the important objects at the time or the result is the opposite and the cognitive load increases.
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