Citation

Kaiser MK, Mowafy L. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 1993; 19(5): 1028-1040.

Affiliation

Aerospace Human Factors Research Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035-1000.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8228837

Abstract

Despite its general mathematical formulation, most empirical work on the visual perception of tau (defined as a quantity divided by its temporal derivative) has focused on the case of direct approach, with tau defined as image angle/rate of expansion. Empirical investigators tend to generalize image size analyses to off-axis approaches. However, this generalization is inappropriate for all but a few classes of objects. After mathematically reestablishing the appropriate optical cues specifying time to passage for noncollision cases, we report a series of studies in which we examined observers' sensitivities to this information in both relative- and absolute-judgment paradigms. In general, we found observers' judgments to be accurate and robust.

Language: en