Foggy perception slows us down
Visual speed is believed to be underestimated at low contrast, which has been proposed as an explanation of excessive driving speed in fog. Combining psychophysics measurements and driving simulation, we confirm that speed is underestimated when contrast is reduced uniformly for all objects of the v...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | English |
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eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
2012
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479833/ |
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pubmed-3479833 |
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pubmed-34798332012-10-30 Foggy perception slows us down Pretto, Paolo Bresciani, Jean-Pierre Rainer, Gregor Bülthoff, Heinrich H Neuroscience Visual speed is believed to be underestimated at low contrast, which has been proposed as an explanation of excessive driving speed in fog. Combining psychophysics measurements and driving simulation, we confirm that speed is underestimated when contrast is reduced uniformly for all objects of the visual scene independently of their distance from the viewer. However, we show that when contrast is reduced more for distant objects, as is the case in real fog, visual speed is actually overestimated, prompting drivers to decelerate. Using an artificial anti-fog—that is, fog characterized by better visibility for distant than for close objects, we demonstrate for the first time that perceived speed depends on the spatial distribution of contrast over the visual scene rather than the global level of contrast per se. Our results cast new light on how reduced visibility conditions affect perceived speed, providing important insight into the human visual system. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2012-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC3479833/ /pubmed/23110253 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00031 Text en Copyright © 2012, Pretto et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Pretto, Paolo Bresciani, Jean-Pierre Rainer, Gregor Bülthoff, Heinrich H |
| spellingShingle |
Pretto, Paolo Bresciani, Jean-Pierre Rainer, Gregor Bülthoff, Heinrich H Foggy perception slows us down |
| author_facet |
Pretto, Paolo Bresciani, Jean-Pierre Rainer, Gregor Bülthoff, Heinrich H |
| author_sort |
Pretto, Paolo |
| title |
Foggy perception slows us down |
| title_short |
Foggy perception slows us down |
| title_full |
Foggy perception slows us down |
| title_fullStr |
Foggy perception slows us down |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Foggy perception slows us down |
| title_sort |
foggy perception slows us down |
| description |
Visual speed is believed to be underestimated at low contrast, which has been proposed as an explanation of excessive driving speed in fog. Combining psychophysics measurements and driving simulation, we confirm that speed is underestimated when contrast is reduced uniformly for all objects of the visual scene independently of their distance from the viewer. However, we show that when contrast is reduced more for distant objects, as is the case in real fog, visual speed is actually overestimated, prompting drivers to decelerate. Using an artificial anti-fog—that is, fog characterized by better visibility for distant than for close objects, we demonstrate for the first time that perceived speed depends on the spatial distribution of contrast over the visual scene rather than the global level of contrast per se. Our results cast new light on how reduced visibility conditions affect perceived speed, providing important insight into the human visual system. |
| publisher |
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479833/ |
| _version_ |
1611918416475586560 |