Objective measures for the effectiveness of augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) systems present a mixture of virtual and real objects. The challenge for AR system evaluators is how to tell whether the virtual world is effective at conveying the sense of reality. It may never be possible or even necessary to determine whether the user is truly fooled in all situations or is merely "suspending disbelief," but one can objectively measure the effectiveness of an AR environment with a task-based approach. We present the results of our first such experiment, involving low-level perceptual tasks of recognition and depth matching.