Gaze location and heading perception in curvilinear motion
During self-motion, observer's gaze can be located a different location. Depending on where the gaze is located in space, the retinal flow pattern will be different. Figure 1 illustrate several examples of retinal flow fields generated by either a rotation or a translation of the observer, when the observer keeps his eye's axis aligned with or away from the axis of self-motion.
Figure 1 : Retinal image flow patterns for a rotation and a translation of the observer.
We investigated the dependance of gaze location upon curvature discrimination in human subjets. Figure 2 illustrates 3 examples of flow field generated with a gaze located straight ahead...
Figure 2 : Examples of flow field pattern when a curvilinear self-motion is simulated within a tube-like environnement. In the left panel, observer's heading is intersecting the leftward wall of the tunnel. In the right panel, the observer's heading is intersecting the rightward wall of the tunnel. The reference condition, for with observer's pathway follows the tunnel axis, is illustrated in the central panel.