Looking At or Looking Out: Exploring Monocular Cues to Cre ate a See-Through Experience with a Virtual Window

In indoor environments, having a view from a window plays an important role in human physical and psychological well-being – particularly if the view contains natural elements. In places where physical windows are absent or the view is highly artifact-dominated, virtual windows can potentially play a beneficial role. The current paper presents a research experiment on the efficacy of three monocular depth cues, i.e., motion parallax, blur, and occlusion, in engendering a window-like 'see-through experience' using projected photorealistic scenes. Results indicate that all three cues have a significant main effect on the viewer's 'seethrough experience', with motion parallax yielding the greatest effect size. These results provide a first step in identifying and testing the perceptual elements that are essential in creating a convincing virtual window.