Heading Discrimination Thresholds and Lateral Heading Detection Thresholds When Exposed to Low-frequency Linear Motion

Abstract

This paper reports two experiments conducted to measure human heading discrimination performance. In the first experiment, we measured the minimum heading angle of a linear heading motion that can be discriminated from the straight ahead direction - ‘Heading Discrimination Threshold (HDT)’. Uni-directional linear sinusoidal motion was used. Effects of different combinations of peak acceleration (20, 25 and 30 cm/s²) and frequencies (0.25, 0.5 and 1 Hz) were studied. In the second experiment, we also measured minimum peak acceleration needed for subjects to discriminate lateral heading motions and call it ‘Heading Detection Threshold (HDeT)’. We hypothesized that HDTs will be linearly correlated with HDeTs when measured in same frequency conditions. The preliminary result of first 7 subjects showed that peak acceleration magnitude was a significant factor on HDTs while frequency was not. A trend towards a significant correlation between HDTs and HDeTs was emerging for the 1 Hz condition.

References

Benson

A. J.

Spencer

M. B.

Stott

J. R.

(1986). Thresholds for the detection of the direction of whole-body, linear movement in the horizontal plane. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 57(11), 1088–1096.

Butler

J. S.

Smith

S. T.

Campos

J. L.

Bülthoff

H. H.

(2010). Bayesian integration of visual and vestibular signals for heading. Journal of Vision, 10(11), 1–13.

de Winkel

K. N.

Weesie

Werkhoven

P. J.

Groen

E. L.

(2010). Integration of visual and inertial cues in perceived heading of self-motion. Journal of Vision, 10(12), 1–10.

Fetsch

C. R.

Turner

A. H.

DeAngelis

G. C.

Angelaki

D. E.

(2009). Dynamic reweighting of visual and vestibular cues during self-motion perception. The Journal of Neuroscience, 29(49), 15601-15612.

Fründ

Haenel

N. V.

Wichmann

F. A.

(2011). Inference for psychometric functions in the presence of nonstationary behavior. Journal of Vision, 11(6), 1–19.

DeAngelis

G. C.

Angelaki

D. E.

(2007). A functional link between area MSTd and heading perception based on vestibular signals. Nature Neuroscience, 10(8), 1038–1047.

Hlavacka

Mergner

Bolha

(1996). Human self-motion perception during translatory vestibular and proprioceptive stimulation. Neuroscience letters, 210(2), 83-86.

Kingma

(2005). Thresholds for perception of direction of linear acceleration as a possible evaluation of the otolith function. BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders, 5(1), 5.

MacNeilage

P. R.

Banks

M. S.

DeAngelis

G. C.

Angelaki

D. E.

(2010). Vestibular heading discrimination and sensitivity to linear acceleration in head and world coordinates. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(27), 9084-9094.

10.

Soyka

Giordano

P. R.

Beykirch

Bülthoff

H. H.

(2011). Predicting direction detection thresholds for arbitrary translational acceleration profiles in the horizontal plane. Experimental Brain Research, 209(1), 95-107.