The foggy effect of egocentric distance in a nonverbal paradigm

Abstract

Inaccurate egocentric distance and speed perception are two main explanations for the high accident rate associated with driving in foggy weather. The effect of foggy weather on speed has been well studied. However, its effect on egocentric distance perception is poorly understood. The paradigm for measuring perceived egocentric distance in previous studies was verbal estimation instead of a nonverbal paradigm. In the current research, a nonverbal paradigm, the visual matching task, was used. Our results from the nonverbal task revealed a robust foggy effect on egocentric distance. Observers overestimated the egocentric distance in foggy weather compared to in clear weather. The higher the concentration of fog, the more serious the overestimation. This effect of fog on egocentric distance was not limited to a certain distance range but was maintained in action space and vista space. Our findings confirm the foggy effect with a nonverbal paradigm and reveal that people may perceive egocentric distance more "accurately" in foggy weather than when it is measured with a verbal estimation task.

The effect of contrast on pedestrians’ perception of vehicle speed in different road environments

“…It could be that the increase of the perceived speed in fog was caused by an overestimation of vehicle distance. Fog has been shown to increase the perceived distance of vehicles (Cavallo, Colomb & Doré, 2001;Dong, Chen, Zhang, Zhang, Zhang & Zhang, 2021) and other objects (Ross, 1967). Among other things, the bias can be attributed to the intensification of the aerial perspective resulting from the distance-dependent changes of color and contrast.…”

Methods for measuring egocentric distance perception in visual modality

“…On the other hand, during matching, the observer does not need to use the absolute or actual units of length, so the method can be used in a context with large systematic errors, and to some extent, the errors can be offset in the process of matching. For example, in virtual reality, the bias of distance perception is large, but perceptual distance matching is still appropriate for the scenario ( Wu et al, 2007a ; Dong et al, 2021a , b ). More importantly, neither the verbal report nor the action-based method cannot be applied in the vista space (>30 m), but perceptual distance matching has no such limitation.…”