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Abstract:
Two experiments investigated the stabilizing influence of vision on human upright
posture in real and virtual environments. Visual stabilization was assessed by comparing
eyes-open to eyes-closed conditions while participants attempted to maintain balance in
the presence of a stable visual scene. Visual stabilization in the virtual display was
reduced compared to real world viewing. This difference was partially accounted for by
the reduced field of view in the virtual display. When the retinal flow in the virtual
display was removed by using dynamic random dot stereograms with single frame
lifetimes (cyclopean stimuli), vision did not stabilize posture. There was also an overall
larger stabilizing influence of vision when adopting more unstable stances (e.g., one-foot
compared to side-by-side stance). Reducing the graphics latency of the virtual display by
63 did not increase visual stabilization in the virtual display. Other visual and
psychological differences between real and virtual environments are discussed.
