Computer-Mediated Reality

Real-time computational interposition between a person and sensory input, using a wearable or handheld device to add, remove, or transform information before it is perceived.

Version

v1 · 2026-09-28 · History

Domain-specific #

8623

Domain group

Professional & Organizational Practice

Origin domain

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Subdomains

Wearable Computing, Mediated Reality → Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Aliases

Mediated reality, Computationally mediated reality, Computer-mediated perception

Core Idea

Computer-mediated reality places a computational system in the perceptual path between a person and an environment. A wearable or handheld device captures or generates sensory information, adds, removes, masks, substitutes, or otherwise transforms it, and returns the result as part of what the user perceives. Augmented, diminished, mixed, and virtual reality occupy different regions of this broader transformation space.

The application supplies the purpose; the defining abstraction is the real-time perceptual transformation loop itself.

How would you explain it like I'm…

Magic Changing Glasses

Imagine magic glasses with a tiny camera and screen inside. They can add pictures to what you see, hide things you don't want to see, or swap the whole view for a make-believe world. Computer-mediated reality is when a computer sits between your eyes and the world and changes what you see.

Computers That Change What You See

Computer-mediated reality means a computer is placed in the middle between you and what you see or hear. A device you wear or hold, like special glasses or a phone, picks up what is around you, changes it, and shows you the changed version. It might add things (augmented reality), take things away (diminished reality), or replace almost everything (virtual reality). These are all parts of one bigger idea: the computer changing the stream of what you perceive. It can be used for games, directions, helping people see, drawing, and fixing equipment.

Computer-Filtered Perception

Computer-mediated reality places a computer in the perceptual path between a person and the environment. A wearable or handheld device captures, generates or receives sensory information, transforms it by adding, removing, masking or substituting content, and presents the result as part of what the user perceives. This is broader than just adding digital overlays: augmented reality adds, diminished reality subtracts, and virtual reality can replace most or all of the view. Mediated reality treats these as regions of one design space defined by how computation changes the perceptual stream. Vision is the clearest case: a camera-and-display device acts as a visual filter on what would otherwise reach your eyes. Uses include seeing aids, games, wayfinding and remote guidance, but the idea itself is the transformation loop.

 

Computer-mediated reality places a computational system in the perceptual path between a person and their environment. A wearable or handheld device captures, generates, or receives sensory information, transforms it by adding, removing, masking, substituting, or otherwise altering content, and presents the transformed result as part of the user's perception. The concept is broader than digital overlay: augmented reality is additive, diminished reality subtractive, and virtual reality can replace most or all of the visible environment, and mediated reality treats these as regions of a single design space defined by how computation alters the perceptual stream. The best-developed case is visual, where a camera-and-display device acts as a filter on the stream that would otherwise reach the eyes. This architecture supports seeing aids, interactive interfaces, games, wayfinding, remote guidance, equipment work, and drawing. The applications provide purpose, but the abstraction itself is the capture–transform–present loop.

Scope of Application

The abstraction applies when transformed sensory information is returned into a user's ongoing perceptual experience rather than merely stored or analyzed.

• Seeing aids — A wearable system filters a visual stream to emphasize useful information.
• Diminished reality — Selected visual elements are masked or removed from the delivered scene.
• Interactive games — Generated objects are integrated with or substituted for environmental information.
• Remote guidance — Mediated views connect a user's perception with expert or task information.
• Equipment and wayfinding interfaces — Overlays or filtering support action in a physical setting.

The frozen evidence is strongest for vision; healthcare examples establish application interest, not clinical efficacy. Passive recording and offline processing fall outside the class unless their output re-enters perception.

Clarity

Computer-Mediated Reality classifies systems by what computation does to the perceptual stream rather than by device branding. It separates addition, subtraction, substitution, and replacement, and distinguishes live perceptual interposition from passive recording or offline image processing. A clear account names the channel, incoming information, transformation, delivered percept, and objective, instead of assuming that every headset or smartphone application performs the same operation.

Manages Complexity

Sensors, tracking, rendering, displays, and task software collapse into a functional pipeline: environment, sensory representation, computational transformation, delivered percept, and user response. This representation localizes failures and supports comparison across hardware. Capture errors occur before transformation; misleading overlays arise within it; latency and registration affect delivery; and apparently correct output can still miss the user's objective.

Abstract Reasoning

Use pipeline decomposition, operation classification, and counterfactual removal. Trace information from environment to percept, classify the operation as addition, subtraction, substitution, or replacement, and ask whether removing computation restores ordinary perception. Identify which information must remain faithful for the task. Then evaluate fidelity, latency, perceptual load, and task fit at the stage where each constraint enters instead of treating “reality technology” as one undifferentiated device class.

Knowledge Transfer

Within human–computer interaction, the mediation loop transfers literally across devices and applications whenever computation transforms sensory information before or during perception. Device shape may change while environment, transformation, and delivered percept remain. Calling a news feed or database query “mediated reality” is usually metaphorical because it lacks that perceptual loop. Interface, Transformation, and Perception–Action Loop are related abstractions, while the current DAG records Computer-Mediated Reality as an unparented root pending later densification.

Relationships to Other Abstractions

Current abstraction Computer-Mediated Reality Domain-specific

Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on

• Computer-Mediated Reality is a kind of Transformation Prime

  Computer-Mediated Reality is a Transformation that computationally maps incoming sensory information to an altered perceptual stream in real time.

Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root

• Computer-Mediated Reality → Transformation → Function (Mapping)

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

Computer-Mediated Reality sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (72^nd percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.

Family — Unclustered & Miscellaneous (2551 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

• Form Perception — 0.86
• Ecological psychology — 0.86
• Dehaene–Changeux model — 0.83
• Theory of Indispensable Attributes — 0.83
• Responsive-Layout Breakage — 0.82

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-08