Telepresence Effects on the Relationship of Velocity to the Psychological Experience of Speed

Abstract

This study examines potential mappings between the subjective experience of speed when mediated through visual display devices and the physical velocity of a vehicle, especially when the apparatus for experiencing speed and the actual vehicle are not in the same scale. Such mappings are important for creating psychological reality in telepresence environments, such as a driving simulator. Subjects made magnitude estimations of perceived speed by watching video clips of forward motion taken from vehicles of two different heights. A 2.625:1 ratio in “virtual” eyeheights was approximately maintained in the magnitude estimates, indicating that speed is experienced as a scaled quantity relative to virtual eyeheight. When magnitude estimates for the lower virtual eyeheight were scaled, perceived speed at that height could be predicted for any actual velocity in this experiment. Building on this knowledge, telepresence designers must account for the scale factor in predicting other behaviors such as distance for braking and turning the vehicle.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Dyre

B. P.

(1997). Perception of accelerating self-motion: global optical flow rate dominates discontinuity rate. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 41^st Annual Meeting, (pp. 1333–1337). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Engen

(1971). Scaling methods. In Kling

J. W.

Riggs

L. A.

(Eds.), Woodworth & Scholsberg's Experimental Psychology 3^rd Ed. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Larish

J. F.

Flach

J. M.

(1990). Sources of optical information useful for perception of speed of rectilinear self-motion. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 16(2): 295–302.

Lee

D. N.

(1974). Visual information during locomotion. In MacLeod

R. B.

Pick

H. L.

Jr. (Eds.), Perception: Essays in honor of J. J. Gibson (pp. 250–267. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Lee

D. N.

(1976). A theory of visual control of braking based on information about time to collision. Perception, 5, 437–459.

Lee

D. N.

(1980). The optic flow field: The foundation of vision. Transactions of the Royal Society, 290B, 169–179.

Owen

D. H.

Warren

Jensen

R. S.

Mangold

S. J.

Hettinger

L. J.

(1981). Optical information for detecting loss in one's own forward speed. Acta Psychologica, 48, 203–213.

Stevens

S. S.

(1957). On the psychophysical law. Psychological Review, 64, 153–181.

Warren

(1982). Optical transformations during movement: Review of the optical concomitants of egospeed. (Final technical report for Grant No. AFOSR-81-0108). Columbus: Ohio State University, Department of Psychology, Aviation Psychology Laboratory.