RECOVERING HEADING FOR VISUALLY GUIDED NAVIGATION IN THE PRESENCE OF SELF-MOVING OBJECTS

I present a model for recovering the direction of heading of an observer who is moving relative to a scene that may contain self-moving objects. The model builds upon the work of Rieger & Lawton (1985) and Longuet-Higgins & Prazdny (1981), whose approach uses velocity differences computed in regions of high depth variation to locate the focus of expansion that indicates the observer's heading direction. We present the results of computer simulations with natural and artificial images and relate the behaviour of the model to psychophysical observations regarding heading judgements.