How Can Attention Guiding Techniques Help to Search Efficiently Without Getting Distracted? A Comparative Study.

Attention Guiding Techniques (AGTs) in augmented reality (AR) assistance systems improve visual search efficiency but may cause important events to be missed. This study investigates both effects in a controlled AR environment using HoloLens 2. Participants searched for virtual target objects at varying search angles and reported changes during the task. Three AGT conditions were tested: Highlight, Highlight with 3D Arrow (+3DArrow), and Highlight with Attention Funnel (+AF). Both +3DArrow and +AF improved search times over Highlight. However, +AF was less effective than +3DArrow for targets behind participants. The condition +3DArrow caused significantly more change blindness than Highlight, likely due to the arrow's central field of view (FOV) placement. In contrast, AF's peripheral tunnel rings allowed better monitoring of changes. These results underscore the importance of selecting and designing AGTs according to task context to balance guidance efficiency with situational awareness.