Vision naturally occurs in the context of voluntary information gathering movements
involving the eyes, head, and hand. However, much work in vision is dominated by trying
to understand the events occurring within a single view of a scene, and we have only
limited understanding of the consequences of eye and head movements for vision and
visuo-motor coordination. The technology to look at performance in more natural
circumstances now exists, and I am currently developing a human sensory-motor lab,
in collaboration with Dana Ballard in Computer Science, for measuring unconstrained eye,
head, and hand movements in the performance of natural tasks, and for developing a virtual
reality display to allow controlled but visually complex stimulation. We also have the
capability of providing force feedback for two finger grasping. The new instrumentation
allows a large range of experiments not previously possible. My objective is to understand
the demands placed on vision and motor systems by natural behavior and the nature of the
representations that are required for visually guided tasks.