Coordinating Actions in Nearby 3-D Space

摘要

Natural patterns of head and eye movements were studied during inspection and manipulation of nearby target objects. Emphasis was placed on the study of natural tasks, that is, tasks in which subjects look at and handle real objects in a fully-lighted and highly-structured visual environment. These studies seek to determine how accurate binocular fixation must be in order to insure rapid and accurate manual performance in nearby 3-D space. The answer to this (and derivative) questions was not known because, until recently, binocular gaze-errors could not be measured accurately when nearby objects were handled by a subject free to move naturally. This research used unique instrumentation to examine fine-scale characteristics of coordinated human actions in nearby 3-D space. The upper body was free from artificial restraints, allowing an examination of natural 3-D search and action patterns. The research completed so far showed that observations made previously under less natural conditions have underestimated the capacity of the human oculomotor system and have obscured its preferred modes of operation.