Substantial, Decomposable, and Invisible: Visual Context Misalignment in Instructional Videos for Physical Tasks

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Li, Yayuan, Li, Chenglin, Wang, Jingying, Bellos, Filippos, Guo, Anhong, Corso, Jason J.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Li, Yayuan
Li, Chenglin
Wang, Jingying
Bellos, Filippos
Guo, Anhong
Corso, Jason J.
author_facet Li, Yayuan
Li, Chenglin
Wang, Jingying
Bellos, Filippos
Guo, Anhong
Corso, Jason J.
contents Instructional videos are the dominant medium for learning physical tasks, yet they rarely match the user's real-world visual context. Motor simulation and cognitive load theories predict this mismatch should matter, but we do not know (1) how much it could affect task completion, (2) which visual attributes are responsible, and (3) how users experience it. We conduct two complementary studies (56 participants, 86+ hours, four first-aid and culinary tasks) in which we use Wizard-of-Oz recordings to control the degree of visual alignment in instructional videos. In Study 1 (N=16), we prepare In-Context instructional videos (ICON) -- fully aligned with the user's visual perception -- to compare against business-as-usual Internet videos. ICON yields statistically significant improvements: 11.1% higher completion quality and 15.5% faster completion. Qualitative analysis reveals four visual context attributes responsible for the effect: Task Object Intrinsics, Task Object State, Environmental Context, and Observational Context. Study 2 (N=40) ablates each attribute by systematically misaligning one at a time from an otherwise fully aligned video, confirming all four produce consistent degradation. However, we find users fail to perceive the effect of single-attribute misalignment on task performance despite clear drops in objective measurement. Visual context misalignment is substantial, decomposable, and invisible to the user. These findings help understand the effect of visual context mismatch and how we should evaluate instructional videos for physical task guidance.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_17184
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Substantial, Decomposable, and Invisible: Visual Context Misalignment in Instructional Videos for Physical Tasks
Li, Yayuan
Li, Chenglin
Wang, Jingying
Bellos, Filippos
Guo, Anhong
Corso, Jason J.
Human-Computer Interaction
Instructional videos are the dominant medium for learning physical tasks, yet they rarely match the user's real-world visual context. Motor simulation and cognitive load theories predict this mismatch should matter, but we do not know (1) how much it could affect task completion, (2) which visual attributes are responsible, and (3) how users experience it. We conduct two complementary studies (56 participants, 86+ hours, four first-aid and culinary tasks) in which we use Wizard-of-Oz recordings to control the degree of visual alignment in instructional videos. In Study 1 (N=16), we prepare In-Context instructional videos (ICON) -- fully aligned with the user's visual perception -- to compare against business-as-usual Internet videos. ICON yields statistically significant improvements: 11.1% higher completion quality and 15.5% faster completion. Qualitative analysis reveals four visual context attributes responsible for the effect: Task Object Intrinsics, Task Object State, Environmental Context, and Observational Context. Study 2 (N=40) ablates each attribute by systematically misaligning one at a time from an otherwise fully aligned video, confirming all four produce consistent degradation. However, we find users fail to perceive the effect of single-attribute misalignment on task performance despite clear drops in objective measurement. Visual context misalignment is substantial, decomposable, and invisible to the user. These findings help understand the effect of visual context mismatch and how we should evaluate instructional videos for physical task guidance.
title Substantial, Decomposable, and Invisible: Visual Context Misalignment in Instructional Videos for Physical Tasks
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17184