Perception of circular heading from optical flow.

Observers viewed random-dot optical flow displays that simulated self-motion on a circular path and judged whether they would pass to the right or left of a target at 16 m. Two dots in two frames are theoretically sufficient to specify circular heading if the orientation of the rotation axis is known. Heading accuracies were better than 1.5 degrees with a ground surface, wall surface, and 3D cloud of dots, and were constant over densities down to 2 dots, consistent with the theory. However, there was an inverse relation between the radius of the observer's path and constant heading error, such that at small radii observers reported heading 3 degrees to the outside of the actual path with the ground and to the inside with the wall and cloud. This may be an artifact of a small display screen.