L. Telford et Ip. Howard, ROLE OF OPTICAL-FLOW FIELD ASYMMETRY IN THE PERCEPTION OF HEADING DURING LINEAR MOTION, Perception & psychophysics, 58(2), 1996, pp. 283-288
During linear translation through a stationary environment, the patter
n of optical flow generated on each retina is symmetrical when the hea
d is aligned with the heading, but during lateral gaze the optical flo
w is asymmetric. We assessed whether human subjects could use the magn
itude of this asymmetry to determine the direction of heading during p
assive translation through a 3-D environment. When allowed to move the
ir heads in order to look in the direction of self-motion, subjects in
dicated their heading precisely and accurately. When the head was lock
ed in alignment with the misaligned body, and gaze adjustments were no
t allowed, responses were quite precise, but showed a large bias which
increased with increasing heading angle.