Visual and proprioceptive integration in self-motion
Single Paper Presentation
Hong-Jin Sun
Psychology - McMaster
Jennifer Campos
Psychology - McMaster George Chan
Psychology - McMaster Abstract ID Number: 117 Full text:
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Last modified: May 20, 2003 Abstract
This study assessed the relative contributions of visual and proprioceptive/motor information during self-motion in a virtual environment using a distance discrimination task. Subjects wore a head-mounted display and rode a stationary bicycle along a straight path in an empty, seemingly infinite hallway with random surface texture. During each trial, subjects traversed two distances (a standard distance and a comparison distance) and subsequently reported whether the second distance was longer than the first distance. The standard distance remained fixed while the comparison distance was varied according to the method of constant stimuli. The relation between visual and proprioceptive information were made inconsistent by varying optic flow gain (OFG). Such variations resulted in different psychometric functions. The degree of separation between these functions indicates that both optic flow and proprioceptive cues contribute to distance estimation. The exact weighting of each cue depended upon the size of the perceptual conflict and the stability or variability of a particular cue. These results are reminiscent of the concepts underlying the optimal integration model, which predicts that sensory information from multiple sources is weighted according to the estimated reliability of each.
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