In order to distinguish between the use of visual and gravito-inertial force reference frames, the heat tilt of drivers and passengers were measured as they went around corners at various speeds. The visual curvature of the corners were thus dissociated from the magnitude of the centripetal forces (0.30-0.77 g). Drivers' head tilts were highly correlated with the visually-available estimate of the curvature of the road (r² = 0.86) but not with the centripetal force (r² less than 0.1). Passengers' head tilts were inversely correlated with the lateral forces (r² = 0.3 - 0.7) and seem to reflect a passive sway. The strong correlation of the tilt of drivers' heads with a visual aspect of the road ahead, supports the use of a predominantly visual reference frame for the driving task. (A)
Abstract