Agency-Enhanced Visual Search in VR: Robust to Distraction, Delay, and Perspective Shifts

The sense of agency, the internal feeling of controlling one's actions and their outcomes, fundamentally shapes user interaction in virtual environments. Although extensively studied for its subjective impact, agency's implicit yet critical role in guiding visual-spatial attention has been largely overlooked. This study investigated whether the sense of agency, conferred by prior active control, enhances subsequent visual search efficiency for the previously controlled stimulus under conditions of attentional, temporal, and spatial perturbation. Our results show that agency-driven attentional benefits are remarkably robust, persisting despite competing salient visual distractors, delayed outcomes, and changes in spatial layout. Furthermore, when a delay was introduced between the control and visual search, the agency effect attenuated for targets presented beyond the operators’ peripersonal space. These findings provide valuable insights for constructing immersive user experiences and advancing theoretical frameworks in human-computer interaction, suggesting efficient strategies to support sustained user engagement in virtual and augmented reality.