Enhancing Multi-Region Target Search Efficiency Through Integrated Peripheral Vision and Head-Mounted Display Systems

Effectively managing visual search tasks across multiple spatial regions during daily activities such as driving, cycling, and navigating complex environments often overwhelms visual processing capacity, increasing the risk of errors and missed critical information. This study investigates an integrated approach that combines an Ambient Display system utilizing peripheral vision cues with traditional Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) to enhance spatial search efficiency while minimizing cognitive burden. We systematically evaluated this integrated HMD-Ambient Display system against standalone HMD configurations through comprehensive user studies involving target search scenarios across multiple spatial regions. Our findings demonstrate that the combined approach significantly improves user performance by establishing a complementary visual system where peripheral stimuli effectively capture initial attention while central HMD cues provide precise directional guidance. The integrated system showed substantial improvements in reaction time for rear visual region searches and higher user preference ratings compared with HMD-only conditions. This integrated approach represents an innovative solution that efficiently utilizes dual visual channels, reducing cognitive load while enhancing search efficiency across distributed spatial areas. Our contributions provide valuable design guidelines for developing assistive technologies that improve performance in multi-region visual search tasks by strategically leveraging the complementary strengths of peripheral and central visual processing mechanisms.