Visual estimation of travel distance during walking

Abstract

The optic flow generated in the eyes during self-motion provides an important control signal for direction and speed of self-motion, and can be used to track the distance that has been traveled. The use of vision for these behavioral tasks can be studied in isolation in virtual reality setups, in which self-motion is merely simulated, and in which the visual motion can be controlled independently of other sensory cues. In such experiments it was found that the estimation of the travel distance of a simulated movement shows characteristic errors, sometimes overestimating and sometimes underestimating the true travel distance. These errors can be explained by a leaky path integration model. To test whether this model also holds for actual self-motion in the real world we studied walking distance perception in an open field with tasks similar to those previously used in virtual environments. We show that similar errors occur in the estimation of travel distance in the real world as in virtual environment, and that they are consistent with the leaky integration model.