Vection: What is it & can a simulator visual system induce the phenomenon?
ABSTRACT Visually induced self-motion, often referred to as vection, is a phenomenon that is often observed in the real world. The famous railroad station paradox is an often quoted example. In this manifestation a person in a stationary train experiences the illusion that he/she is moving when the adjacent train begins to move. Once the person realizes that he/she has not received vestibular or somatosensory stimulation or gazes at a fixed object the illusion is destroyed and replaced with a veridical sense of homeostasis. Past research has indicated that there is latency in the onset of the vection illusion from about a second to as long as 10 seconds. Furthermore it has been found that this latency can be reduced to as little as 0.1 second if a vestibular stimulus of even a jolt in the appropriate direction. However it also has been shown that a superliminal vestibular stimulus in the wrong direction will abruptly destroy well developed vection. Until recently virtually all this research has been conducted in a laboratory and not in a flight simulator.

This paper will review the recent literature to assess the extent to which the above questions have been answered. It will also discuss the development of a novel approach to quantitative metrics for assessing the ability of simulator visual systems to induce vection.

VITA Frank. Cardullo is Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science at the State University of New York, at Binghamton, New York. Among the courses he teaches are graduate courses in control systems, flight simulation and man-machine systems. Professor Cardullo conducts research into the perception and stimulation of visual, force and motion cues in vehicle simulators and other applications of virtual reality, such as virtual medicine and entertainment simulators, as well as vehicle modeling techniques for real-time systems. He is also an active consultant, for many companies and U.S. Government agencies, in these areas as well as in the simulation of vehicle dynamics. He performs the technical coordination and provides three of the lectures in the weeklong Flight and Ground Vehicle Short Course given at SUNY Binghamton. Professor Cardullo initiated this course in 1984 and it has been given annually since then. He has served as an expert witness in several legal cases involving human in the loop systems.

Professor Cardullo has been invited to lecture at various universities, institutes and companies in the USA, England, France, Italy, The Netherlands, South Korea, Russia and China. He is the author of 22 technical papers in both flight and ground vehicle simulation, and a number of reports. He has been awarded a patent for the "Advanced G-Seat", and is a recipient of the DeFlorez Award for Flight Simulation and Training. He is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, a member and former Chairman of their Flight Simulation Technical Committee. He is also a member of the IMAGE Society.

Prior to his joining the faculty, in 1980, Professor Cardullo spent 14 years working in the simulation industry.