Reaching measures of monocular distance perception: forward versus side-to-side head movements and haptic feedback

We investigated whether forward or side-to-side head movements yielded more accurate and precise monocular egocentric distance information, as shown by performance in a reaching task. Observers wore a head-mounted camera and display to isolate the optic flow generated by their head movements and had to reach to align a stylus directly under a target surface. Performance in the two head movement conditions was also tested with normal monocular vision. We tested performance in the two head movement conditions when the observers were given haptic feedback and compared performance when haptic feedback was removed. Performance was both more accurate and more precise in the forward head movement condition than in the side-to-side head movement condition. Performance in the side-to-side condition also deteriorated more after the removal of haptic feedback than did performance in the forward head movement condition. In the normal monocular condition, performance was comparable for the two head movement conditions. The implications for enucleated patients are discussed.