Serial dependence effect in heading perception from optic flow

Perception of heading without retinal optic flow.

How do we determine where we are heading during visually controlled locomotion? Psychophysical research has shown that humans are quite good at judging their travel direction, or heading, from retinal optic flow. Here we show that retinal optic flow is sufficient, but not necessary, for determining heading. By using a purely cyclopean stimulus (random dot cinematogram), we demonstrate heading p...

Perception of Heading and Driving Distance From Optic Flow

Flow parsing and heading perception show similar dependence on quality and quantity of optic flow

Here we examine the relationship between the perception of heading and flow parsing. In a companion study we have investigated the pattern of dependence of human heading estimation on the quantity (amount of dots per frame) and quality (amount of directional noise) of motion information in an optic flow field. In the present study we investigated whether the flow parsing mechanism, which is tho...

Perception of translational heading from optical flow.

Radial patterns of optical flow produced by observer translation could be used to perceive the direction of self-movement during locomotion, and a number of formal analyses of such patterns have recently appeared. However, there is comparatively little empirical research on the perception of heading from optical flow, and what data there are indicate surprisingly poor performance, with heading ...

Perception of circular heading from optical flow.

Observers viewed random-dot optical flow displays that simulated self-motion on a circular path and judged whether they would pass to the right or left of a target at 16 m. Two dots in two frames are theoretically sufficient to specify circular heading if the orientation of the rotation axis is known. Heading accuracies were better than 1.5 degrees with a ground surface, wall surface, and 3D cl...