A Methodology and Experimental Paradigm for Investigating the Human Control Sensations for Displays with Jittery Temporal Delays

Gaze-based human-computer interaction (HCI) via the internet includes temporal delays with unpredictable "jitter," degrading usability including the sense of agency – the feeling of control over one's actions and subsequent outcomes. Using a sense of agency experiment paradigm, we present a novel method to test jitter's effect on user sensation. Our methodology simulates internet-based delays, obtaining data to predict a critical parameter and delay to degrade user sensation. The task was a letter visual search with biresolution gaze-contingent window (high-resolution foveal, blurred peripheral), manipulating consistent and jittery delays between eye movements and display updates. This paradigm effectively manipulated participants’ sense of agency, eliciting systematic bias in authorship responses by manipulating the minimum jittery delay and jitter variability. This suggests that the proposed method provides a powerful tool for understanding the interplay of delays, eye and other body movements, and the sense of agency, with/without neuroimaging, with internet-originated delays in HCI.