Kuiper Belt: Utilizing the “Out-of-natural Angle” Region in the Eye-gaze Interaction for Virtual Reality

The maximum physical range of horizontal human eye movement is approximately 45°. However, in a natural gaze shift, the difference in the direction of the gaze relative to the frontal direction of the head rarely exceeds 25°. We name this region of 25° − 45° the "Kuiper Belt" in the eye-gaze interaction. We try to utilize this region to solve the Midas touch problem to enable a search task while reducing false input in the Virtual Reality environment. In this work, we conduct two studies to figure out the design principle of how we place menu items in the Kuiper Belt as an "out-of-natural angle" region of the eye-gaze movement, and determine the effectiveness and workload of the Kuiper Belt-based method. The results indicate that the Kuiper Belt-based method facilitated the visual search task while reducing false input. Finally, we present example applications utilizing the findings of these studies.