Paired and unpaired features can be equally effective in human depth perception

The horizontal separation of the eyes results in the projection of slightly different images in each eye that are used to recover depth. One source of depth information is disparity, the relative position of paired features in the two eyes. Another source of depth information comes from features that are present in only one eye's view. These unpaired features arise from occlusion and by definition cannot generate a conventional disparity signal. Here we compare the depth signals generated by paired and unpaired features using stimuli that differ only in whether a given feature (a vertical gap) is paired or unpaired. Ecologically, both stimuli are consistent with two panels separated in depth at the gap, but only the paired gap provides a conventional disparity signal. We found strikingly that depth thresholds for the two gap conditions were the same and that there was perfect cross-adaptation of perceived depth from the unpaired to paired condition, strongly suggesting a common mechanism.

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