Publication Summary
Time to contact of an approaching object may be specified through monocular optic expansion, e.g. ‘tau’ (Lee, 1976). On the other hand it has been demonstrated that disturbing binocular information impairs performance in a dynamic interceptive task (Judge and Bradford, 1988). Three optical devices were employed to explore whether participants (n = 5) could be trained to utilise different information when estimating time to contact of an approaching ball. A pendulum was used to project a ball at three different velocities. Performance was measured using an IR-based tracking system (Selspot), and an IR eye-tracker (Ober2) was used to monitor vergence. Cyclopean spectacles (which remove disparity information) were used to train participants. Pre- and post-training performance was compared with performance in telestereoscopes (these double binocular disparity at near), and spectacles that control for secondary optical effects by increasing the optical pathlength and reducing the field of view and illumination. Our results confirm that disrupting binocular information impairs performance but that performance quickly recovers. Reasons for the performance recovery will be discussed in relation to the use of available optical information.
CAER Authors
Prof. Mark Mon-Williams
University of Leeds - Chair in Cognitive Psychology