Abstract
Blinking was studied as a physiological index to objectively evaluate the psychological influence of 3D-HDTV images on viewers. Variance of blinking frequency, which indicates the localization of blinks occurring for each cut quantitatively, was used as the method of evaluation. When compared to the variance of blinking frequency while viewing 2D-HDTV images, the results showed that the variance for 3D-HDTV was larger than that for 2D-HDTV. This suggests that the occurence of blinking depends more on the content of each cut for 3D-HDTV than it does for 2D-HDTV. To examine why, cuts that caused frequent blinking are discussed from the viewpoint of interest or concentration. The number of blinks per minute, measured over several cuts, is also investigated. When the viewing time is about 18 minutes, the number of blinks was greater while viewing 3D images than whil eviewing 2D images for one subject tested. For four other subjects tested, however, there was no significant difference in the number of blinks.
