Active heading control in simulated flight based on vertically extended contours

In two experiments, we manipulated the properties of 3-D objects and terrain texture in order to investigate their effects on active heading control during simulated flight. Simulated crosswinds were used to introduce a rotational component into the retinal flow field that presumably provided the visual cues used for heading control. An active control task was used so that the results could be generalized to real-world applications such as flight simulation. In Experiment 1, we examined the effects of three types of terrain, each of which was presented with and without 3-D objects (trees), and found that the presence of 3-D objects was more important than terrain texture for precise heading control. In Experiment 2, we investigated the effects of varying the height and density of 3-D objects and found that increasing 3-D object density improved heading control, but that 3-D object height had only a small effect. On the basis of these results, we conclude that the vertical contours improved active heading control by enhancing the motion parallax information contained in the retinal flow. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]