Which parts of the road guide steering?

A DRIVER steering a car on a twisting road has two distinct tasks: to match the road curvature, and to keep a proper distance from the lane edges. Both are achieved by turning the steering wheel, but it is not clear which part or parts of the road ahead supply the visual information needed, or how i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1995-09, Vol.377 (6547), p.339-340
Main Authors: Land, Michael, Horwood, Julia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Applied physiology
Automobile Driving
Automotive components
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Computer Simulation
Curvature
Deviation
Drivers
Driving ability
Female
Human physiology applied to population studies and life conditions. Human ecophysiology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
letter
Male
Mathematical analysis
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Models, Neurological
multidisciplinary
Neurology
Roads
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Simulation
Space life sciences
Steering
Tasks
Transports. Aerospace. Diving. Altitude
Visual Perception - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A DRIVER steering a car on a twisting road has two distinct tasks: to match the road curvature, and to keep a proper distance from the lane edges. Both are achieved by turning the steering wheel, but it is not clear which part or parts of the road ahead supply the visual information needed, or how it is used. Current models of the behaviour of real drivers 1,2 or 'co-driver' simulators 3–5 vary greatly in their implementation of these tasks, but all agree that successful steering requires the driver to monitor the angular deviation of the road from the vehicle's present heading at some 'preview' distance ahead, typically about 1 s into the future. Eye movement recordings generally support this view 6–9 . Here we have used a simple road simulator, in which only certain parts of the road are displayed, to show that at moderate to high speeds accurate driving requires that both a distant and a near region of the road are visible. The former is used to estimate road curvature and the latter to provide position-in-lane feedback. At lower speeds only the near region is necessary. These results support a two-stage model 1 of driver behaviour.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/377339a0