The authors have used experimental cybernetic television techniques to investigate human factors in automobile steering and safety1–3. The methods used introduced into safety research yoked vision feedback procedures in which a television camera–monitor chain and a videotape recorder were inserted in the motor sensory control loop by which the driver steers the vehicle. Instead of seeing the road directly from the guided vehicle, the driver had to view a television monitor mounted in the windshield visor, on which the operational image of the passing road was transmitted from cameras located on the hood on the top of the car. This substitute televised image of the passing road and other cars can be controlled by steering much as if the road were being viewed directly through the windshield visor. The method is based on the general theory that the driver steers the car by using points on the hood or front of the car as cursors in tracking relative space displacement between the dynamic movements of steering and the visual imaging of the operational effects of these movements.
Abstract