skip to main content
10.1145/507072.507074acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesetraConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Vision in natural and virtual environments

Published:25 March 2002Publication History

ABSTRACT

Our knowledge of the way that the visual system operates in everyday behavior has, until recently, been very limited. This information is critical not only for understanding visual function, but also for understanding the consequences of various kinds of visual impairment, and for the development of interfaces between human and artificial systems. The development of eye trackers that can be mounted on the head now allows monitoring of gaze without restricting the observer's movements. Observations of natural behavior have demonstrated the highly task-specific and directed nature of fixation patterns, and reveal considerable regularity between observers. Eye, head, and hand coordination also reveals much greater flexibility and task-specificity than previously supposed. Experimental examination of the issues raised by observations of natural behavior requires the development of complex virtual environments that can be manipulated by the experimenter at critical points during task performance. Experiments where we monitored gaze in a simulated driving environment demonstrate that visibility of task relevant information depends critically on active search initiated by the observer according to an internally generated schedule, and this schedule depends on learnt regularities in the environment. In another virtual environment where observers copied toy models we showed that regularities in the spatial structure are used by observers to control eye movement targeting. Other experiments in a virtual environment with haptic feedback show that even simple visual properties like size are not continuously available or processed automatically by the visual system, but are dynamically acquired and discarded according to the momentary task demands.

References

  1. BALLARD, D. H. 1991 Animate vision: An evolutionary step in computational vision. J. of the Inst. of Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers, 74, 343-348.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. BALLARD, D, HAYHOE, M. AND PELZ J. 1995 Memory Representations in natural tasks. Cognitive Neuroscience 7, 66-80. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. BALLARD, D. HAYHOE, M., POOK, P. AND RAO, R. 1997 Deictic Codes for the Embodiment of Cognition. Behavioral & Brain Sciences 20, 723-767.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  4. CHUN, M. & YIANG, Y. 1998 Contextual cueing: Implicit learning and memory of visual context guides spatial attention. Cognitive Psychology, 36, 28-71.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  5. CHUN, M. & YIANG, Y. 1999 Top-down attentional guidance based on implicit learning of visual covariation Psychological Science, 10, 360-365.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  6. EPELBOIM, J., STEINMAN, R,, KOWLER, E,, EDWARDS, M,, PIZLO, Z,, ERKELENS, C,, AND COLLEWIJN, H. 1995 The function of visual search and memory in sequential looking tasks. Vision Res. 35, 3401-22.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  7. HAYHOE, M. M. 2000 Vision using routines: a functional account of vision. Visual Cognition, 7, 43-64.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  8. HAYHOE, M., LAND, M., AND SHRIVASTAVA, A. 1999 Coordination of eye and hand movements in a normal environment. Invest. Ophthalmol & Vis. Sci. 40, S380.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  9. HENDERSON, J. AND HOLLINGWORTH, A. 1999 The role of fixation position in detecting scene changes across saccades. Psychological Science, 10, 438-443.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  10. D. E. IRWIN, 1991 Information integration across saccadic eye movements, Cognitive Psychology, 23, 420-456.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  11. LAND MF, AND LEE DN 1994 Where we look when we steer. Nature (Lond.) 369: 742-744.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  12. LAND, M. AND FURNEAUX, S. 1997 The knowledge base of the oculomotor system. Phil Trans. R. Lond. Soc. B, 352, 1231-1239.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  13. LAND, M. F. AND MCCLEOD, P. 2000 The eye movement strategies of batsmen in cricket. Invest. Ophthalmol. AND Vis Sci., Suppl. 40, S815.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  14. LAND MF, MENNIE N, AND RUSTED J 1999 Eye movements and the roles of vision in activities of daily living: making a cup of tea. Perception 28, 1311-1328.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  15. J. K. O'REGAN AND A. LEVY-SCHOEN 1983 Integrating visual information from successive fixations: Does trans-saccadic fusion exist? Vision Research, 23, 765-769.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  16. O'REGAN, J. K., RENSINK, R. A. AND CLARK, J. J. 1999 Change-blindness as a result of 'mudsplashes'. Nature, 398, 34.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  17. O'REGAN, J. K., DEUBEL, H., CLARK, J. AND RENSINK, R. A. 2000 Picture changes during blinks: looking without seeing and seeing without looking. Visual Cognition, 7, 191-211Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  18. PELZ, J. B., CANOSA, R., BABCOCK, J., KUCHARCZYK, D., SILVER, A., AND KONNO, D., Portable Eyetracking: A Study of Natural Eye Movements, Proceedings SPIE, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging, San Jose, CA: SPIE 2000.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  19. PELZ, J. B. AND CANOSA, R., 2001 Oculomotor Behavior and Perceptual Strategies in Complex Tasks, Vision Research. (in press)Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  20. RENSINK, R. A., O'REGAN, J. K. AND CLARK, J. J. 1997 To see or not to see: the need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. J. Psychol. Sc.,. 8, 368-373Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  21. SHINODA, H., HAYHOE, M., AND SHRIVASTAVA, A. 2001 Attention in natural environments. Vision Res. (in press)Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  22. SIMONS, D. J. 2000 Change blindness and visual memory. A special issue of Visual Cognition.Psycology Press, Hove, UK,Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  23. ULLMAN, S. 1984 Visual Routines. Cognition, 18, 97-157.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  1. Vision in natural and virtual environments

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Login options

      Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

      Sign in
      • Published in

        cover image ACM Conferences
        ETRA '02: Proceedings of the 2002 symposium on Eye tracking research & applications
        March 2002
        156 pages
        ISBN:1581134673
        DOI:10.1145/507072

        Copyright © 2002 ACM

        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

        Publisher

        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 25 March 2002

        Permissions

        Request permissions about this article.

        Request Permissions

        Check for updates

        Qualifiers

        • Article

        Acceptance Rates

        ETRA '02 Paper Acceptance Rate18of29submissions,62%Overall Acceptance Rate69of137submissions,50%

        Upcoming Conference

        ETRA '24
        The 2024 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications
        June 4 - 7, 2024
        Glasgow , United Kingdom

      PDF Format

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader