Walking, looking to the side, and taking curved paths.

Full Abstract

In two experiments, viewers judged heading from displays simulating locomotion through tree-filled environments, with gaze off to the side. They marked their heading with a mouse-controlled probe at three different depths. When simulated eye or head rotation generally exceeded 0.5 deg/sec, there was reliable curvature in perceived paths toward the fixated object. This curvature, however, was slight even with rotation rates as great as 2.6 deg/sec. Best-fit paths to circular arcs had radii of 1.8 km or greater. In a third experiment, pedestrians walked with matched gaze to the side. Measured curvature in the direction of gaze corresponded to a circular radius of about 1.3 km. Thus, at minimum, vision scientists need not worry about perceived path curvature in this situation; real path curvatures are about the same. However, at present, we can make no claim that the same mechanisms necessarily govern the two results.

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Author information

Author/s: Cutting, James E (JE); Readinger, Wilson O (WO); Wang, Ranxiao Frances (RF);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-7601, USA. jec7@cornell.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Perception & psychophysics (Percept Psychophys), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 64 (issue 3) : pp 415-25

Dates: Created 2002/06/06; Completed 2002/06/28; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12049282, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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