Gaze-direction and steering effects while driving

Instructions given to novices learning certain tasks of applied navigation often suggest that gazedirection (?line of sight?) should preview the path the operator desires to take (e.g., Bondurant Blakemore, 1998; Motorcycle Safety Foundation, 1992; Morris, 1990), presumably because looking behavior can ultimately affect steering control through hand, arm, or leg movements that could lead to undesired path deviations. Here, we control participants? gaze-direction while driving an automobile in virtual reality, and find that gaze-eccentricity has a large, systematic effect on steering and lane-position. Moreover, even when head-position and postural effects of the driver are controlled, there remains a significant bias to drive in the direction of fixation, indicating the existence of a perceptual, and not merely motor, phenomenon