Spatiotemporal Characteristics of 360-Degree Basic Attention

The spatiotemporal characteristics of basic attention are important for understanding attending behaviours in real-life situations, and they are useful for evaluating the accessibility of visual information. However, although people are encircled by their 360-degree surroundings in real life, no study has addressed the general characteristics of attention to 360-degree surroundings. Here, we conducted an experiment using virtual reality technology to examine the spatiotemporal characteristics of attention in a highly controlled basic visual context consisting of a 360-degree surrounding. We measured response times and gaze patterns during the 360-degree search task and examined the spatial distribution of attention and its temporal variations in a 360-degree environment based on the participants’ physical position. Data were collected from both younger adults and older adults to consider age-related differences. The results showed the fundamental spatiotemporal characteristics of 360-degree attention, which can be used as basic criteria to analyse the structure of exogenous effects on attention in complex 360-degree surroundings in real-life situations. For practical purposes, we created spherical criteria maps of 360-degree attention, which are useful for estimating attending behaviours to 360-degree environmental information or for evaluating visual information design in living environments, workspaces, or other real-life contexts.