THE EFFECT OF FIELD OF VIEW AND SURFACE TEXTURE ON DRIVER STEERING PERFORMANCE

In the present study we investigated steering accuracy in terms of our ability to keep to the middle of a lane in a fixed-base driving simulator. In particular, we studied the dependence of steering accuracy on the visibility of different road sections, on the assumption that performance reflects the importance of different road sections in guiding steering. Other influences on steering accuracy - including the presence of textural cues, in the form of a textured road surface, and the horizontal field of view - were also investigated. We found that textural cues can improve accuracy in lateral lane control, presumably by providing strong optical flow, and that driving accuracy is little affected by increasing the horizontal field of view from 40 degrees to a full field of 180 degrees.