Judgments about Collisions in Simulations of Scenes with Textured Surfaces and Self-Motion: Do Display Enhancements Affect Performance?

Abstract

To move through the environment safely, people must make effective judgments about collisions. It has been asserted that most studies of time-to-collision judgments are limited due to a lack of visual realism (Manser & Hancock, 1996). Studies that compared performance among displays which differed in realism provided mixed results. We measured judgments about whether, and when, two objects would have collided with each other. Results from simulations of scenes with colored, textured surfaces and a moving observer were mostly comparable to earlier results from simulations of black-and-white, line-drawn objects and a stationary observer (DeLucia, 1995; DeLucia & Meyer, 1999). Texture and self-motion affected performance in a restricted set of conditions and did not eliminate errors due to misleading depth cues. Increases in realism, which incur more costs and computational time, may not always be justifiable from a performance standpoint. Results have design implications for simulators and virtual reality systems.

Motorcycle Accident Risk Could Be Inflated by a Time to Arrival Illusion

“…They found time-to-collision judgments decreased as the scene was enriched, with the more realistic scenes mapping more closely to real-world judgments. However, DeLucia et al 15 found similar patterns of results in displays of differing realism when participants were asked to judge whether two objects would collide. In the situation we are exploring in the present study, it remains an open question as to whether greater realism yields a different pattern of results.…”

Does Binocular Disparity or Familiar Size Information Override Effects of Relative Size on Judgements of Time to Contact?

“…Subsequent studies demonstrated that the size-arrival effect is robust and occurs under a variety of task and display conditions. These included active collision-avoidance tasks (DeLucia & Warren, 1994), judgements about whether two objects would collide with each other (DeLucia, 1995), high-resolution photographic animations of real approaching objects (DeLucia, 1989(DeLucia, , 1991a, simulations of self motion and object motion during self-motion (DeLucia, 1991b;DeLucia, Meyer, & Bush, 2002), and high-fidelity computer simulations of traffic scenes (Caird & Hancock, 1994).…”