Les environnements côtiers se caractérisent en de très nombreux endroits, depuis les zones tropicales jusqu’à des latitudes tempérées à froides, par des sédiments qui sont constitués d’un mélange de particules silicoclastiques et bioclastiques. Les processus de transport qui s’opèrent dans ces environnements dits "mixtes" sont difficiles à quantifier et modéliser compte tenu des différences de comportement hydrodynamique entre les particules silicoclastiques,souvent de forme sub-sphérique, et les particules bioclastiques dont les formes sont beaucoup plus complexes. En lien avec cette problématique, l’objectif général de la thèse est d’évaluer si des modifications de la composition de sédiments mixtes peut avoir un impact significatif sur la dynamique du trait de côte, et plus spécifiquement sur les modalités de construction des barrières littorales. Pour répondre à cet objectif une approche expérimentale a été choisie. Des expérimentations en érodimètre sous courant unidirectionnel mettent en évidence le comportement singulier des débris bioclastiques par rapport à des particules silicoclastiques, et surtout des différences significatives de comportement entre des bioclastes provenant de diverses espèces de mollusques. Ces résultats pourraient permettre notamment d’améliorer les modèles numériques de transport sédimentaire. Des expérimentations dans un grand canal à houle montrent clairement que des barrières littorales reconstituées à partir de mélanges en proportions variables de sédiments silicoclastiques et bioclastiques ont des caractéristiques morphologiques et des architectures internes différentes. Les barrières très bioclastiques sont plus hautes et moins larges que les barrières contenant plus de particules silicoclastiques. Ces conclusions suggèrent qu’une augmentation en apports bioclastiques pourrait avoir un effetpositif sur la stabilité des barrières littorales. / In many areas, coastal environments, from tropical to temperate-cold zones, are characterizedby mixed sediments, i.e. made of a mixture of siliciclastic and biogenic particles. Processes oftransport that occur in these so-called "mixed" environments are difficult to quantify and modeldue to the differences in hydrodynamic behaviour between siliciclastic particles, generally ofsub-spherical shape, and bioclastic particles the shape of which is very complex. The presentPhD work is related to this topic and aims in evaluating if changes in the composition ofmixed sediments can impact significantly the dynamics of the coastline, and more specificallythe construction modes of coastal barriers. To reach this objective an experimental approachhas been developed. Experiments in unidirectional current flume (erodimeter) highlight thesingular behaviour of bioclastic debris in comparison with that of siliciclastic particles, as wellas significant differences in behavior between bioclasts from various mollusc species. Theseresults could help in improving numerical models of natural sediment transport. Experimentsin a large wave flume clearly show that coastal barriers reconstructed from mixtures of varyingproportions of siliciclastic and bioclastic sediments have different morphological characteristicsand internal architectures. Barriers with high content in bioclastic debris are thicker andnarrower compared to barriers containing more siliciclastic particles. These findings suggestthat an increase in bioclastic inputs may have a positive effect on the stability of littoral barriers.

The underestimation of depth in virtual environments at mediumield distances is a well studied phenomenon. However, the degree by which underestimation occurs varies widely from one study to the next, with some studies reporting as much as 68% underestimation in distance and others with as little as 6% (Thompson et al. [38] and Jones et al. [14]). In particular, the study detailed in Jones et al. [14] found a surprisingly small underestimation effect in a virtual environment (VE) and no effect in an augmented environment (AE). These are highly unusual results when compared to the large body of existing work in virtual and augmented distance judgments [16, 31, 36–38, 40–43]. The series of experiments described in this document attempted to determine the cause of these unusual results. Specifically, Experiment I aimed to determine if the experimental design was a factor and also to determine if participants were improving their performance throughout the course of the experiment. Experiment II analyzed two possible sources of implicit feedback in the experimental procedures and identified visual information available in the lower periphery as a key source of feedback. Experiment III analyzed distance estimation when all peripheral visual information was eliminated. Experiment IV then illustrated that optical flow in a participant’s periphery is a key factor in facilitating improved depth judgments in both virtual and augmented environments. Experiment V attempted to further reduce cues in the periphery by removing a strongly contrasting white surveyor’s tape from the center of the hallway, and found that participants continued to significantly adapt even when given very sparse peripheral cues. The final experiment, Experiment VI, found that when participants’ views are restricted to the field-of-view of the screen area on the return walk, adaptation still occurs in both virtual and augmented environments.