Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Tau as a potential control variable for visually guided braking.

Paul B Rock1, Mike G Harris

  • 1School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom. p.b.rock@bham.ac.uk

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance
|April 26, 2006
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Efficacy of residence at moderate versus low altitude on reducing acute mountain sickness in men following rapid ascent to 4300 m.

High altitude medicine & biology·2013
Same author

Sun and sky: Does human vision assume a mixture of point and diffuse illumination when interpreting shape-from-shading?

Vision research·2011
Same author

What is second-order vision for? Discriminating illumination versus material changes.

Journal of vision·2010
Same author

The impact of moderate-altitude staging on pulmonary arterial hemodynamics after ascent to high altitude.

High altitude medicine & biology·2010
Same author

Exercise performance of sea-level residents at 4300 m after 6 days at 2200 m.

Aviation, space, and environmental medicine·2009
Same author

Effect of six days of staging on physiologic adjustments and acute mountain sickness during ascent to 4300 meters.

High altitude medicine & biology·2009
Same journal

Human thermal sensitivity drifts at extreme temperatures.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Dynamic competition between selective attention and spatial prediction during visual search.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Encapsulation of the visual perception of social events from semantic priming.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Biasmapping: Idiosyncratic covert search in the vicinity of fixation.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

What are you still waiting for? Fricative recognition shows encapsulated processing and is partially predicted by secondary cue reliance.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same journal

Eye movements reveal that drivers can predict the location of hazards in dynamic road scenes but gaze and awareness are dissociable.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
See all related articles

This study on braking control found that while performance aligns with the tau hypothesis, it does not improve when tau estimation is easier. The absence of a ground plane also negatively impacted braking.

Area of Science:

  • Human motor control
  • Perception-action coupling
  • Robotics and autonomous systems

Background:

  • The tau hypothesis proposes drivers brake based on time-to-contact (tau).
  • Previous research suggested braking performance aligns with the tau hypothesis.
  • Optical expansion provides visual cues for time-to-contact estimation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the validity and limitations of the tau hypothesis in braking control.
  • To examine how environmental factors influence braking performance based on tau.
  • To determine if enhanced tau estimation improves braking strategy.

Main Methods:

  • Braking simulations were conducted to analyze driver behavior.
  • Performance was evaluated under varying conditions, including the presence/absence of a ground plane.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Data analysis focused on the rate of change of time-to-contact during braking.

    • Main Results:

    • Braking performance generally supported the tau hypothesis, with time-to-contact declining at a constant slope.
    • Performance did not improve in conditions that facilitated tau estimation.
    • Braking performance significantly deteriorated without a ground plane, indicating a reliance on this visual cue.

    Conclusions:

    • The tau hypothesis offers a partial explanation for braking control but is not fully comprehensive.
    • Visual cues, particularly the ground plane, are crucial for accurate speed and distance perception during braking.
    • Further research is needed to incorporate other factors into braking control models.