Varon Sofia, Babin Karsten, Spering Miriam, Culham Jody C
Neuroscience Program, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
J Vis. 2025 Jan 2;25(1):11. doi: 10.1167/jov.25.1.11.
Human performance in perceptual and visuomotor tasks is enhanced when stimulus motion follows the laws of gravitational physics, including acceleration consistent with Earth's gravity, g. Here we used a manual interception task in virtual reality to investigate the effects of trajectory shape and orientation on interception timing and accuracy. Participants punched to intercept a ball moving along one of four trajectories that varied in shape (parabola or tent) and orientation (upright or inverted). We also varied the location of visual fixation such that trajectories fell entirely within the lower or upper visual field. Reaction times were faster for more natural shapes and orientations, regardless of visual field. Overall accuracy was poorer and movement time was longer for the inverted tent condition than the other three conditions, perhaps because it was imperfectly reminiscent of a bouncing ball. A detailed analysis of spatial errors revealed that interception endpoints were more likely to fall along the path of the final trajectory in upright vs. inverted conditions, suggesting stronger expectations regarding the final trajectory direction for these conditions. Taken together, these results suggest that the naturalness of the shape and orientation of a trajectory contributes to performance in a virtual interception task.
当刺激运动遵循引力物理定律时，包括与地球引力g一致的加速度，人类在感知和视觉运动任务中的表现会得到提升。在此，我们使用虚拟现实中的手动拦截任务来研究轨迹形状和方向对拦截时间和准确性的影响。参与者进行击打以拦截沿四种轨迹之一运动的球，这四种轨迹在形状（抛物线或帐篷形）和方向（直立或倒置）上有所不同。我们还改变了视觉注视的位置，以使轨迹完全落在下部或上部视野内。无论视野如何，对于更自然的形状和方向，反应时间都更快。与其他三种情况相比，倒置帐篷条件下的总体准确性较差且运动时间更长，这可能是因为它与弹跳球的相似性不完全。对空间误差的详细分析表明，与倒置条件相比，直立条件下拦截端点更有可能沿着最终轨迹的路径落下，这表明在这些条件下对最终轨迹方向的期望更强。综上所述，这些结果表明轨迹形状和方向的自然程度有助于虚拟拦截任务中的表现。
