Reorienting in Virtual 3D Environments: Do Adult Humans Use Principal Axes, Medial Axes or Local Geometry?

Ambosta, Althea H.; Reichert, James F.; Kelly, Debbie M.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0078985

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…But upon closer inspection, the use of these spatial cues also differed in degree in that geometric encoding was not as accurate in the VR environment as in the real-world environment. Given that much of the current reorientation and navigation research is conducted using virtually rendered environments 25 – 28 , our findings provide an important level of insight (as well as a point of caution) for researchers when interpreting results from VR settings. The metric properties of virtual environments appear not to be encoded by participants in a manner analogous to encoding in real-world environments, even in a highly immersive VR environment as was used in our current study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Orientation in Virtual Reality Does Not Fully Measure Up to the Real-World

Kimura¹,

Reichert²,

Olson³

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Adult participants learned to reorient to a specific corner inside either a real or virtual rectangular room containing a distinct featural object in each corner. Participants in the virtual-reality (VR) condition experienced an immersive virtual version of the physical room using a head-mounted display (HMD) and customized manual wheelchair to provide self-movement. Following a disorientation procedure, people could reorient by using either the geometry of the room and/or the distinct features in the corners. Test trials in which the different spatial cues were manipulated revealed participants encoded features and geometry in both the real and VR rooms. However, participants in the VR room showed less facility with using geometry. Our results suggest caution must be taken when interpreting the nuances of spatial cue use in virtual environments. Reduced reliability of geometric cues in VR environments may result in greater reliance on feature cues than would normally be expected under similar real-world conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Orientation in Virtual Reality Does Not Fully Measure Up to the Real-World

Kimura¹,

Reichert²,

Olson³

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…Like the medial axis, the appeal of such a structure is that it provides a low-dimensional description of an object's overall shape. However, unlike the medial axis, the principal axes of a shape do not provide any description of the object's local geometry such as curvature or corners (Ambosta, Reichert, & Kelly, 2013; Cheng & Gallistel, 2005; Kelly & Durocher, 2011).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skeletal representations of shape in human vision: Evidence for a pruned medial axis model

et al. 2019

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A representation of shape that is low dimensional and stable across minor disruptions is critical for object recognition. Computer vision research suggests that such a representation can be supported by the medial axis—a computational model for extracting a shape's internal skeleton. However, few studies have shown evidence of medial axis processing in humans, and even fewer have examined how the medial axis is extracted in the presence of disruptive contours. Here, we tested whether human skeletal representations of shape reflect the medial axis transform (MAT), a computation sensitive to all available contours, or a pruned medial axis, which ignores contours that may be considered “noise.” Across three experiments, participants (N = 2062) were shown complete, perturbed, or illusory two-dimensional shapes on a tablet computer and were asked to tap the shapes anywhere once. When directly compared with another viable model of shape perception (based on principal axes), participants' collective responses were better fit by the medial axis, and a direct test of boundary avoidance suggested that this result was not likely because of a task-specific cognitive strategy (Experiment 1). Moreover, participants' responses reflected a pruned computation in shapes with small or large internal or external perturbations (Experiment 2) and under conditions of illusory contours (Experiment 3). These findings extend previous work by suggesting that humans extract a relatively stable medial axis of shapes. A relatively stable skeletal representation, reflected by a pruned model, may be well equipped to support real-world shape perception and object recognition.

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“…More recently, however, a trunk-and-branch shape parameter called the medial axis (Blum & Nagel, 1978) has garnered support because it captures overall shape information, allows reproduction of the objective shape, and may provide an underlying mechanism for the formation of complex and information-rich global spatial representations (Ambosta, Reichert, & Kelly, 2013; Kelly, Chiandetti, & Vallortigara, 2011; Kelly & Durocher, 2011; cf. Sturz & Bodily, 2011, 2012; see Figure 1A, second panel).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing principal- versus medial-axis accounts of global spatial reorientation.

Bodily

Sullens

Price

et al. 2018

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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Determination of a direction of travel is a necessary component of successful navigation, and various species appear to use the geometric shape (global geometric cues) of an environment to determine direction. Yet, debate remains concerning which objective shape parameter is responsible for spatial reorientation via global geometric cues. For example, the principal axis of space, which runs through the centroid and approximate length of the space, and the medial axis of space, a trunk and branch system that fills the shape, have each been suggested as a basis to explain global spatial reorientation. As the principal- and medial-axis accounts appear to have substantial theoretical implications regarding the nature of shape perception, spatial memory, and the underlying psychological representations of space, it appears critical to empirically differentiate between these global geometric accounts. The present experiment explicitly placed predictions from the principal- and medial-axis-based accounts of global spatial reorientation in conflict for theoretical diagnostic purposes. We used a standard reorientation paradigm in which human participants first reoriented in a rectangular environment; subsequent testing in a critical I-shaped enclosure allowed dissociation of the principal- or medial-axis-based accounts. We show that reorientation in the I-shaped enclosure was consistent with the principal-axis account and inconsistent with the medial-axis account. We suggest that the use of the principal axis for spatial reorientation is a relatively simple and efficient way to establish directionality that would be advantageous over a more complex and less efficient medial-axis-based account. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Reorienting in Virtual 3D Environments: Do Adult Humans Use Principal Axes, Medial Axes or Local Geometry?

Cited by 12 publications

References 34 publications

Orientation in Virtual Reality Does Not Fully Measure Up to the Real-World

Orientation in Virtual Reality Does Not Fully Measure Up to the Real-World

Skeletal representations of shape in human vision: Evidence for a pruned medial axis model

Testing principal- versus medial-axis accounts of global spatial reorientation.

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