Virtual Reality as a Tool for the Study of Perception-Action: The Case of Running to Catch Fly Balls

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) holds great promise for the study of perception-action. The case of studying the outfielder problem is presented as an example of how VR has contributed to our understanding of perception-action, and of the potential and pitfalls of using VR in such a task. The outfielder problem refers to the situation in a baseball game (and analogous situations) in which an outfielder has to run to get to the right location at the right time to make a catch. Several experimental studies are discussed in which participants had to intercept real or virtual balls. The biggest added value of using VR is the fact that the virtual world is completely in the hands of the experimenter, which allows studying situations that do not exist outside of VR, thus enabling strong hypothesis testing. A number of factors related to the success of the VR experiments are identified, such as the lack of haptic feedback in VR setups used in this paradigm until now, the specifics of the optics presented to the participants, and the available space for locomotion. We argue that it is important to make a close comparison of task behavior in VR with that outside of VR, but conclude having great expectations of the role of VR in perception-action research. IntroductionIn this contribution we address the potential of virtual reality technologies to contribute to the elucidation of the behavioral control strategies underlying perception-action coupling. Because control strategies are task specific (Bootsma, 1998;Warren, 1988) we focus on a particular type of problem: moving so as to intercept a ball before it hits the ground. This paradigmatic problem not only exemplifies the ongoing theoretical debate on how our interactions with dynamic environments are organized, but also boasts a significant body of past and current experimental research, using both real and computer-generated environments. While the discussion is limited to the particular problem under scrutiny, it allows the potential and pitfalls of using virtual reality (VR) to emerge within the setting of a well-identified scientific problem.Observation of behavior under ''natural'' conditions allows checking whether the observed behavior is compatible with the predictions that can be made from a particular hypothesis. This kind of reality check is not only useful but also necessary if we want to ascertain that experimentation in a particular (laboratory) setting generalizes to the terrain of natural behavior. However, as we shall argue

Navigational strategy used to intercept fly balls under real-world conditions with moving visual background fields

“…1) by the amount that fielders run forward or backward (Babler & Dannemiller, 1993;McLeod & Dienes, 1993McLeod, Reed, & Dienes, 2003Michaels & Oudejans, 1992). Other research has further confirmed that fielders maintain OAC even in extreme cases, such as pop-ups, in which balls can travel along dramatically nonparabolic trajectories (McBeath, Nathan, Bahill, & Baldwin, 2008), and when catching fly balls in virtual environments (Fink, Foo, & Warren, 2009;Turvey & Fonseca, 2009;Zaal & Bootsma, 2011).…”

“…However, the wide angle and interactive characteristics of flow fields suggests that providing observers with a large, immersive environment of flow fields might increase the impact of the distracting background motion. Recent interception research in larger virtual environments has addressed some of these issues, but still it has been limited by display resolution and reaction speed and the lack of accommodation depth cues, all of which prevent precise, rapid actions like catching from being fully realistic (Fink et al, 2009;Turvey & Fonseca, 2009;Zaal & Bootsma, 2011). In short, it remains unclear whether or not moving background stimuli affects human catching behavior in a study under real-world conditions.…”

“…Such settings typically lack active motion of the observer. Recent research has used largescale immersive virtual environments that have allowed fielder motion, but these can include distortion or some depth cue ambiguity, and they may limit the full speed and range of motion that can comprise accurate catching behavior (Fink et al, 2009;Turvey & Fonseca, 2009;Zaal & Bootsma, 2011). The present study is one of the first to investigate interceptive navigational behavior with added illusory flow fields in a real-world immersive environment.…”

Three Alternatives to Measure the Human-Likeness of a Handshake Model in a Turing-like Test

“…The use of virtual reality, telepresence and teleoperation systems for the study of perception, is growing in the last few years (Jin, 2011;Zaal & Bootsma, 2011). In a recent research (Feth et al, 2011), human-robot interaction in a virtual environment was studied, and the humanlikeness of virtual partners with a predetermined or adaptive collaborative behavior was evaluated .…”

Towards an Operational Framework for Designing Training Based Sports Virtual Reality Performance Simulators

“…VR has been used as a training simulator across a range of sports including; basketball free-throw shooting [5], rugby side-stepping [1,2], handball goal-keeping [1], soccer goal keeping [2], and fly ball catching [6] to varying degrees of success. Covaci et al [5] used a basketball free-throw shooting task.…”