Consistent wind facilitates vection
Last modified: 2011-09-02
Abstract
We examined whether a consistent haptic cue suggesting forward self-motion facilitated vection. We used a fan with no blades (Dyson, AM01) providing a wind of constant strength and direction (wind speed was 6.37 m/s) to the subjects’ faces with the visual stimuli visible through the fan. We used an optic flow of expansion or contraction created by positioning 16,000 dots at random inside a simulated cube (length 20 m), and moving the observer’s viewpoint to simulate forward or backward self-motion of 16 m/s. we tested three conditions for fan operation, which were normal operation, normal operation with the fan reversed (i.e. no wind), and no operation (no wind and no sound). Vection was facilitated by the wind (shorter latency, longer duration and larger magnitude values) with the expansion stimuli. The fan noise did not facilitate vection. The wind neither facilitated nor inhibited vection with the contraction stimuli, perhaps because a headwind is not consistent with backward self-motion. We speculate that the consistency between multi modalities is a key factor in facilitating vection.