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Distances processing to collision avoidance against fixed obstacles: rigid environment

During a task of blinded walking to previously seen targets, people often do it accurately, even without vision feedback. When they fail, accidents may happen, like falling. These failures are often associated with human mistakes during decision-making processes, action or perception. The present study was designed in order to verify if these failures, in a collision avoidance task, are associated to the spatial orientation and to observers' tendencies. Design: 4 experimental groups (Whole Scene, obstacle and avoidance points; Imagine, only obstacle; Without obstacle; avoidance points; 10sec Delay, obstacle and avoidance points) x 3 obstacle distances (three, seven and 12 meters) x 2 avoidance distances (0.5 and 1.0 meter). The observers saw the scene and then blinded walked to the avoidance points. The results showed an accuracy in the Whole Scene group, that suggest a powerful action of the visual information in the coordination of motor behaviors. The undershoot found on the others indicates that cognitive processes, like observers' tendencies, might lead to mistakes in action. The accuracy in the walked distance between the avoidance points at 1.0m may be due to a comfortable situation or to the powerful action of fronto-parallel dimension.

Distance; Collision; Obstacles


Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia Av.Bandeirantes 3900 - Monte Alegre, 14040-901 Ribeirão Preto - São Paulo - Brasil, Tel.: (55 16) 3315-3829 - Ribeirão Preto - SP - Brazil
E-mail: paideia@usp.br