Egocentric distance estimation on a discontinuous ground surface in the virtual environment

Abstract

The results of multiple studies conducted in the real world have demonstrated that human observers are usually very accurate in judging egocentric distance (the distance from the observer to a target) up to about 25 meters if the target is located on a continuous ground surface. Sinai et al. [1998] found that the presence of a texture discontinuity on the ground surface leads to distance underestimation. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of a discontinuous ground surface on distance perception in virtual environments (VEs). The first experiment was the replication of Experiment 1 from Wu et al. [2007]. The second experiment involved the manipulation of the position of the texture boundary.