What is the minimum field of view required for efficient navigation?

Critical points were computed to determine the minimum field of view (FOV) size required for efficient navigation. Navigation performance in 20 normally sighted subjects was assessed using an immersive virtual environment. Subjects were instructed to walk through a virtual forest to a target tree as quickly as possible without hitting any obstacles (trees, boulders, and holes). The navigation task was performed in three FOV and image contrast conditions under binocular, monocular, chromatic and achromatic viewing conditions. FOV was constricted to 10°, 20° and 40° diameter and average image contrast was nominally high (11%), medium (6%) and low (3%). Navigation performance was scored as latency in walk initiation, walk time to reach goal and the number of obstacle contacts. The results revealed a linear relationship between log FOV and the two time measures, log latency and log walk time. The slopes of the linear regressions for log latency and log walk time ranged between –0.11 and –0.41. Critical points were computed from the non-linear relationships found between the number of obstacle contacts and FOV. The critical points for efficient navigation were FOVs of 32.1°, 18.4° and 10.9° (diam.) for low, medium and high image contrast levels, respectively, highlighting the importance of contrast on the size of the FOV required for efficient navigation. Neither binocularity nor image chromaticity significantly affected navigation performance. The findings of this study have important implications in the design and prescription of head mounted displays intended to augment navigation performance.