The Real-Life Dangers of Augmented Reality

Tekla Perry writes: Today's augmented reality devices have yet to go through extensive tests of their impact on their wearers' health and safety. But by looking at existing research involving visual and motor impairments, two Kaiser Permanente researchers find they can draw conclusions about the promise and perils of augmented reality, and point to ways wearable developers can make these devices safer. The researchers write: "Peripheral vision is more important than you might think, because it provides a wealth of information about speed and distance from objects. Central vision, despite the great detail it offers, gives you only a rough estimate of movement toward or away from you, based on changes in size or in the parallax angle between your eyes. But objects moving within your peripheral vision stimulate photoreceptors from the center of the retina to the edge, providing much better information about the speed of motion. Your brain detects objects in your peripheral field and evaluates if and how they (or you) are moving. Interfering with this process can cause you to misjudge relative motion and could cause you to stumble; it might even get you hit by a car one day."

Comments

human evolution finds a way.

[nimbius]

As a researcher I can confirm this augmented reality threat is limited to a small minority of individuals. Peripheral vision, for example, has been entirely advanced out of the human genome for the average New Jersey driver. While judgements in relative motion are key for some individuals, the average floridian will be keen to realize movement, perceived or not, is irrelevant on highway 27 as the road itself seems to be immune to the passage of time while in a motor vehicle. Californians should not concern themselves with wearable technology and its impact upon vision and cognitive processes related to distance, as the technology will almost certainly be obsolete by the time they exit the 405 freeway.