Steering, optic flow, and the respective importance of depth and retinal motion distribution.
Movement through an environment produces an optical spatiotemporal pattern, known as a flow field. When visually guiding movement using a flow field, do humans make use of information about the distance of constituent elements? Employing a novel active steering task, we examined the use of depth (height-in-scene and disparity) and the role of the retinal motion distribution in the perceptual control of heading from flow. We found that retinal motion distribution, rather than depth order, has the primary role in determining the accuracy of steering.
Rushton
S K
SK
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. simon@cbr.com
Harris
J M
JM
Wann
J P
JP
D003867:Depth Perception; D006801:Humans; D008124:Locomotion; D009039:Motion Perception; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012160:Retina; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological