Head-Mounted, Ambient vision Display for Helicopter Pilotage

摘要

The relatively new notion that visual perception is served by two functionally distinct visual systems, the focal and the ambient, is supported by research evidence accumulated over the past thirty years. The focal system provides detailed information about the world, is controlled by attention and receives input from the fovea. Its performance is highly dependent on iamge focus and luminance level. The ambient visual system contributes continuously and importantly to spatial orientation, stability of the visual world, and locmotion. It responds to large areas of optical flow in the visual field and therefore most of its input comes from the peripheral retina. Ambient functions are carried out largely without conscious awareness and are relatively impervious to image defocus and luminance level. The evidence for the ambient visual system is reviewed and its functional characteristics are described.