Research Information System
COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS, vol.37, no.2, pp.1-25, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
The arrangement of objects in a 3D gaming environment is key to guiding players' visual attention. The human visual system is naturally drawn to salient areas, characterized by high contrast and importance, which directly affect performance in games like hidden-object and first-person shooters. This study investigates how improving user experience can be achieved by varying game difficulty according to objects' saliency. We created two games with three distinct levels of difficulty in which players utilized virtual reality to locate targets in various environments. Game difficulty was modulated by the saliency of these objects within their environments. In the second experiment, we applied the same structure but focused on how varying the materials and colors of objects influenced detection. Our findings show that controlling object saliency and visual characteristics can effectively manage game difficulty, offering new possibilities for adaptive and immersive gaming experiences.