Title

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

Authors

Authors

B. G. Witmer;W. J. Sadowski

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

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

Share

COinS