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Effects of Ambient Illumination and Screen Luminance on Mixed Reality Interaction

Ruilin Liu,Tinghui Li,Z. Sarsenbayeva

Published 2025 in IEEE Access

ABSTRACT

As mixed reality (MR) is increasingly adopted in diverse real-world contexts, its usability becomes susceptible to contextual factors known as situational impairments. Among these, ambient illuminance is particularly critical because it directly influences the visibility and legibility of virtual elements superimposed on the real world. To create MR systems that are robust to these conditions, a systematic understanding of the interplay between ambient illuminance and screen luminance is essential. This paper investigated three ambient illuminance levels (dark: 5 lx, medium: 500 lx, and bright: 40,000–72,000 lx) and two screen luminance levels (low, high) on MR interaction across three fundamental tasks (direct target selection, ray-cast target selection, and text entry). We evaluated the effects of ambient light and screen luminance on interaction performance (movement time, pointing offset, error rate, throughput) as well as on visual fatigue (blink rate and subjective questionnaire). Our results indicate that the effects of lighting are task-dependent. Direct selection remained robust across all conditions, whereas ray-casting showed increased movement time and pointing offset under both bright and dark ambience. Text entry was similarly impaired, with throughput dropping substantially in dark and bright conditions. Furthermore, both dark and bright contexts, especially in combination with high screen luminance, significantly increased visual fatigue. Our findings enhance the understanding of how ambient illuminance and screen luminance affect mixed reality interaction and contribute to the growing body of research on situational impairments in MR.

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