CURVILINEAR APPROACH TO AN INTERSECTION AND VISUAL DETECTION OF A COLLISION

Visual motion perception plays a fundamental role in vehicle control. Recent studies have shown that the pattern of optical flow resulting f rom the observer's self-motion through a stable environment is used by the observer to accurately control his or her movements. However, lit tle is known about the perception of another vehicle during self-motio n-for instance, when a car driver approaches an intersection with traf fic. In a series of experiments using visual simulations of car drivin g, we show that observers are able to detect the presence of a moving object during self-motion. However, the perception of the other car's trajectory appears to be strongly dependent on environmental factors, such as the presence of a road sign near the intersection or the shape of the road. These results suggest that local and global visual facto rs determine the perception of a car's trajectory during self-motion.