Understanding the effect of diminished reality screen filters

Diminished reality refers to changing human perception by concealing, replacing, or removing objects, with the primary objective of decreasing the amount of unnecessary information. Most research in the DR domain focuses on the technical challenges, still, we need to investigate DR's conceptual aspects. Screens are prevalent in many spaces, providing potentially distracting visual stimuli. No previous work has looked at how DR can be applied to screens. I simulated DR screen filters in VR and investigated them in two studies where users experienced them while doing puzzle and conversation tasks. Participants were highly receptive to DR screen filters and preferred static ones, imagining using them to improve their work or study habits. DR screen filters also reduced participants' distractions while in a conversation task. Although participants claimed that filters helped them during other tasks explored in my two user studies, I did not observe significant differences in interaction performance.