More or Less? Effects of Visual Information Modulation on Context Perception

This study examines the effects of two visual guidance techniques, Visual Enhancement and Visual Suppression, on user perception of contextual information in video content. Visual Enhancement introduces explicit visual cues to highlight target content, whereas Visual Suppression attenuates non-target elements, for example, by reducing their brightness. Both approaches aim to isolate specific objects from the background, directing attention to critical information within complex, dynamic scenes. Despite their growing usage, the relative effectiveness of these approaches in guiding attention and their impact on peripheral context awareness remain underexplored. To address this gap, we conducted a controlled user study with 27 participants. The results indicate that Visual Enhancement, through the addition of salient cues, more effectively directs user attention to target information than Visual Suppression. Our findings advance understanding of visual attention in dynamic environments and offer implications for designing visual guidance strategies.