Abstract
Humans perceive self-motion using multisensory information, while vision has a dominant role as is utilized in virtual reality (VR) technologies. Previous studies reported that visual motion presented in the lower visual field (LoVF) induces stronger illusion of self-motion (vection) as compared with the upper visual field (UVF). However, it was still unknown whether the LoVF superiority in vection was based on the retinotopic frame, or rather related to the environmental frame of reference. Here, we investigated the influences of retinotopic and environmental frames on the LoVF superiority of vection. We presented a planer surface along the depth axis in one of four visual fields (upper, lower, right, or left). The texture on the surface moved forward or backward. Participants reported vection while observing the visual stimulus through a VR head mounted display (HMD) in the sitting posture or lateral recumbent position. Results showed that the visual motion induced stronger vection when presented in the LoVF compared with the UVF in both postures. Notably, the vection rating in LoVF was stronger in the sitting than in the recumbent. Moreover, recumbent participants reported stronger vection when the stimulus was presented in the gravitationally lower field than in the gravitationally upper field. These results demonstrate contribution of multiple spatial frames on self-motion perception and imply the importance of ground surface.
Highlights
Perceiving the position and movement of one’s body is essential for acting in the environment appropriately
We first checked that there was no significant effect of optic flow direction on vection measures averaged for each participant
We examined the vertically divided visual fields (UVF and lower visual field (LoVF)) and the laterally divided visual fields (RVF and LeVF) separately, as we were not interested in the comparison across the vertical and lateral visual fields such as upper visual field (UVF) versus RVF
Summary
Perceiving the position and movement of one’s body is essential for acting in the environment appropriately. The vestibular system signals head posture with respect to gravity, as well as angular and linear acceleration (Jamali et al, 2019). Vestibular cues for self-motion adapt when exposed to constant velocity (Fernandez and Goldberg, 1976; St George et al, 2011), emphasizing the need for vestibular-multisensory integration when perceiving self-motion over longer time periods (DeAngelis and Angelaki, 2012). Vision can compensate for the insensitivity of the vestibular systems to constant self-motion; it provides rich information of self-motion such as heading direction (Warren et al, 1988), and visual signals of self-motion persist at constant velocity of self-motion, their buildup is relatively sluggish (Waespe and Henn, 1977).
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