Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Controlled Rotation of Human Observers in a Virtual Reality Environment
Published on: April 21, 2022
The role of visual and nonvisual information in the control of locomotion
Richard M Wilkie1, John P Wann
1Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom. r.m.wilkie@leeds.ac.uk
Abstract:
During locomotion, retinal flow, gaze angle, and vestibular information can contribute to one's perception of self-motion. Their respective roles were investigated during active steering: Retinal flow and gaze angle were biased by altering the visual information during computer-simulated locomotion, and vestibular information was controlled through use of a motorized chair that rotated the participant around his or her vertical axis. Chair rotation was made appropriate for the steering response of the participant or made inappropriate by rotating a proportion of the veridical amount. Large steering errors resulted from selective manipulation of retinal flow and gaze angle, and the pattern of errors provided strong evidence for an additive model of combination. Vestibular information had little or no effect on steering performance, suggesting that vestibular signals are not integrated with visual information for the control of steering at these speeds.
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