Determine the cause of persistent discomfort in video passthrough systems

Determine why users experience persistent discomfort when viewing the physical world through video passthrough systems despite substantial improvements in hardware characteristics such as resolution and latency.

Background

The paper studies behavioral, oculomotor, kinematic, and physiological changes caused by viewing the physical environment through a video passthrough head-mounted display. Although the experiment identifies measurable compensatory behaviors—particularly suppressed head rotation, altered head-gaze coordination, longer fixations, and increased ocular and cognitive strain—it does not fully establish why discomfort persists as passthrough hardware improves.

The unresolved issue concerns the underlying mechanisms of discomfort in mediated perception, including the relative contributions of latency, reprojection artifacts, visual degradation, altered biomechanics, and sensorimotor conflict. Resolving this issue is important for designing passthrough systems that improve comfort without imposing compensatory costs on users.