Can exocentric direction be dissociated from its exocentric distance in virtual environments?

We conducted two psychophysical experiments to investigate the relationship between processing mechanisms for exocentric distance and direction. In the first experiment, the task was to discriminate exocentric distances. In the second one, the task was to discriminate exocentric directions. The individual effects of distance and direction on each task were dissociated by analyzing their corresponding psychophysical functions. Under stereoscopic-viewing conditions, distance judgments of exocentric intervals were not affected by exocentric direction. However, direction judgments were influenced by the distance between the pair of stimuli. Therefore, themechanism processing exocentric direction is dependent on exocentric distance, but the mechanism processing exocentric distance does not require exocentric direction measures. As a result, we suggest that exocentric distanceand directionare hierarchically processed, with distance preceding direction. Alternatively, and more probably, a necessary condition for processing the exocentric direction between two stimuli may be to know the location of each of them.