The proposed research involves a series of experiments aimed at delineating the mechanisms controlling egocentric visual orientation with particular emphasis on (a) visual perception of elevation, (b) visual perception of orientation in the frontal plane (c) visual localization in the horizontal dimension, and (d) the relationships between these three. The experiments are organized around a model (the Great Circle Model) which deals with how influences of oriented lines in the visual field combine to determine three perceptual norms: visually perceived eye level, visually perceived vertical, and visually perceived straight ahead. Other experiments concern the way in which body related and visual information combine. Eight sets of experiments are proposed. The first set extends previous findings on visually perceived eye level to measurement of influences on visually perceived vertical, and asks whether these influences are retinotopic or not. Other experiments examine how the effects of various oriented lines combine, and how sets of linearly arrayed points summate to affect visually perceived eye level. A fourth set of experiments deals with the rise and decay of the influence of the visual field. The fifth set explores the effect of body orientation on visually perceived eye level and visually perceived straight ahead. Two sets of experiments examine the role of binocular stimulation and other information about surface orientation. A final set looks at the role of eye position information.
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