Nonvisually guided locomotion to a previously viewed target in real and virtual environments

    Authors

    B. G. Witmer;W. J. Sadowski

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Hum. Factors

    Keywords

    VISUAL INFORMATION; DISTANCE; PERCEPTION; ACCURACY; Behavioral Sciences; Engineering, Industrial; Ergonomics; Psychology, ; Applied; Psychology

    Abstract

    Comparing human performance in a virtual environment (VE) with performance in the real world can provide clues about which aspects of VE technology require improvement. Using a technique previously shown to measure real-world distance judgments accurately we compared performance in a real-world environment with performance in a virtual model of that environment. The technique required participants to walk without vision to a target after viewing it for 10 s. VE distance judgments averaged 85% of the target distance, whereas real-world judgments averaged 92%. The magnitude of the relative errors in the VE was twice that in the real world, indicating that the VE degraded distance judgments. Our analysis suggests that VE performance deficits result either from poor binocular disparity cues or from distortion of pictorial depth cues. Actual or potential applications of this research include the development of virtual environments for training and the design of visual displays for virtual simulations.

    Journal Title

    Human Factors

    Volume

    40

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-1998

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    478

    Last Page

    488

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000077297000012

    ISSN

    0018-7208

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