A prevailing assumption in Virtual Reality is that the perception of surface gloss attenuates with viewing distance due to the resolution limitations of head-mounted displays (HMDs). While prior work indicates that resolution loss can degrade cues such as highlight sharpness and binocular highlight consistency, the direct linkage between viewing distance and perceived gloss has not been systematically established in VR. This study systematically investigates this relationship, focusing on binocular highlight intensity asymmetry. Contrary to the common assumption, under physically based rendering, our results show no reliable decrease in perceived gloss with distance within the tested range, despite resolution limitations. Moreover, participants' gloss judgments appeared to be more strongly modulated by monocular cues (e.g., highlight luminance, contrast, and temporal information) than by the binocular asymmetry manipulation tested here under our tested conditions. Finally, we find that moderate departures from physically correct binocular highlight consistency did not, within a tested tolerance, undermine perceived realism. These findings provide a new basis for designing efficient rendering techniques that preserve gloss fidelity over distance in VR, suggesting that computational resources might be better allocated to preserving monocular cues.

Paranormal visual effects, such as spirits and miracles, are frequently depicted in visual games and media design. However, current methods do not express paranormal experiences as aspects of the sixth sense. We propose utilizing binocular rivalry to provide a new visual presentation method by displaying different images in each eye. In this study, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 assessed paranormal sensation, color perception controllability, and visual discomfort caused by mismatched colors in each eye in relation to color difference. Experiment 2 assessed our proposed visual presentation method in three application scenarios. The results indicate that our proposed method improves the visual experience of more realistic paranormal phenomena. Moreover, the sensation of paranormal activity, color perception controllability, and visual discomfort increase as the color difference between the colors displayed in the two eyes increases.

In recent years, technologies related to virtual reality (VR) have continued to advance. As a method to enhance the VR experience, we focused on loud vocalization. This is because we believe that loud vocalization can enable us to engage with the VR environment in a more interactive way. Also, as loud vocalization is an action that is thought to be closely related to stress reduction and a sense of exhilaration, the stress reduction through VR with loud vocalization is also expected. But loud vocalization itself has disadvantages for physical, mental, and social reasons. Then, we hypothesized that loud vocalization itself is not necessary for such benefits; but the sense of loud vocalization plays an important role. Therefore, we focused on a method of substituting experience by presenting sensory stimuli. In this paper, we proposed a way to present the sense of loud vocalization through vibratory stimuli to the larynx and auditory stimuli to users who are actually vocalizing quietly with the expectation for the sense of loud vocalization. Our user study showed that the proposed method can extend the sense of vocalization and realize pseudo-loud vocalization. In addition, it was also shown that the proposed method can cause a sense of exhilaration. By contrast, excessively strong vibratory stimuli spoil the sense of loud vocalization, and thus the intensity of the vibration should be appropriately determined.