A new perspective on how humans assess their surroundings; derivation of head orientation and its role in 'framing' the environment.

Understanding the way humans inform themselves about their environment is pivotal in helping explain our susceptibility to stimuli and how this modulates behaviour and movement patterns. We present a new device, the Human Interfaced Personal Observation Platform (HIPOP), which is a head-mounted (typically on a hat) unit that logs magnetometry and accelerometry data at high rates and, following appropriate calibration, can be used to determine the heading and pitch of the wearer's head. We used this device on participants visiting a botanical garden and noted that although head pitch ranged between -80° and 60°, 25% confidence limits were restricted to an arc of about 25° with a tendency for the head to be pitched down (mean head pitch ranged between -43° and 0°).