Updating During Lateral Movement Using Visual and Non-Visual Motion Cues

Spatial updating, the ability to track egocentric positions of surrounding objects during self-motion, is fundamental to navigating around the world. Past studies show people make systematic errors when updating after linear self-motion. To determine the source of these errors, I measured errors in remembered target position with and without passive lateral movements. I also varied the visual (Oculus Rift) and physical (motion-platform) self-motion feedback. In general, people remembered targets as less eccentric with greater underestimations for more eccentric targets. They could use physical cues for updating, but they made larger errors than when they had only visual cues. Visual motion cues alone were enough to produce updating, and physical cues were not needed when visual cues were available. Also, people remembered the targets within the range of movement as closer to the position they were perceived before moving. However, individual perceived distance of the target did not affect their updating.