A new look at binocular stereopsis

We report a new phenomenon, which illustrates that the role of binocular disparity in 3D shape perception critically depends on whether the parts are interpreted as belonging to a single object. The nature of this phenomenon was studied in four experiments. In the first two experiments the subjects were shown a sequence of stereoscopic images of a cube, in which binocular disparity indicated that the individual parts move towards or away from one eye. However, when the parts of the cube were perceived as elements of a single object, they appeared to move in a rigid fashion and the direction of motion was orthogonal to that predicted by the binocular disparities. The third experiment generalized these results to more complex polyhedra. The last experiment showed that constraints related to motion, such as rigidity, are important, but not critical for this phenomenon to occur. All these results imply that the interpretation as to what corresponds to a single object affects the importance (weight) of binocular disparity and may even eliminate its contribution altogether; the percept of a 3D shape is dominated by a priori constraints, and depth cues play a secondary role.

[1]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Object vision and spatial vision: two cortical pathways , 1983, Trends in Neurosciences.

[2]  Fulvio Domini,et al.  Temporal integration of motion and stereo cues to depth , 2003, Perception & psychophysics.

[3]  S Ullman,et al.  Maximizing Rigidity: The Incremental Recovery of 3-D Structure from Rigid and Nonrigid Motion , 1984, Perception.

[4]  B. Julesz.  Foundations of Cyclopean Perception , 1971 .

[5]  Raymond van Ee,et al.  Bi-stability in perceived slant when binocular disparity and monocular perspective specify different slants. , 2002, Journal of vision.

[6]  David Sir Brewster,et al.  The Stereoscope; Its History, Theory, and Construction, with Its Application to the Fine and Useful Arts and to Education , 2007 .

[7]  Z Pizlo,et al.  Shape constancy from novel views , 1999, Perception & psychophysics.

[8]  J. Saunders,et al.  Do humans optimally integrate stereo and texture information for judgments of surface slant? , 2003, Vision Research.

[9]  R. Gregory.  The intelligent eye , 1970 .

[10]  Z. Pizlo.  Perception viewed as an inverse problem , 2001, Vision Research.

[11]  R Blake,et al.  Mislocalization of diplopic images. , 1988, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[12]  V Bruce,et al.  Independent Effects of Lighting, Orientation, and Stereopsis on the Hollow-Face Illusion , 1993, Perception.

[13]  J. Saunders,et al.  Perception of 3D surface orientation from skew symmetry , 2001, Vision Research.

[14]  Ian P. Howard,et al.  Binocular Vision and Stereopsis , 1996 .

[15]  Dave Regan,et al.  Human perception of objects: early visual processing of spatial form defined by luminance , 2000 .

[16]  Zygmunt Pizlo,et al.  A theory of shape constancy based on perspective invariants , 1994, Vision Research.

[17]  R. Hetherington.  The Perception of the Visual World , 1952 .

[18]  S. McKee,et al.  The imprecision of stereopsis , 1990, Vision Research.

[19]  K. Koffka.  Principles Of Gestalt Psychology , 1936 .

[20]  Pascal Mamassian,et al.  Observer biases in the 3D interpretation of line drawings , 1998, Vision Research.

[21]  Robert A. Jacobs,et al.  Modeling the Combination of Motion, Stereo, and Vergence Angle Cues to Visual Depth , 1999, Neural Computation.

[22]  O. Reiser,et al.  Principles Of Gestalt Psychology , 1936 .

[23]  S. Ullman.  The Interpretation of Visual Motion , 1979 .

[24]  Whitman Richards.  Stereopsis with and without monocular contours , 1977, Vision Research.

[25]  L CHARNWOOD,et al.  Mathematical analysis of binocular vision. , 1948, The Optician.

[26]  Vision Research , 1961, Nature.

[27]  Tomaso Poggio,et al.  Computational vision and regularization theory , 1985, Nature.

[28]  G. Sperling,et al.  Tradeoffs between stereopsis and proximity luminance covariance as determinants of perceived 3D structure , 1986, Vision Research.

[29]  James M. Hillis,et al.  Slant from texture and disparity cues: optimal cue combination. , 2004, Journal of vision.

[30]  Paul M. Laporte,et al.  Mathematical Analysis of Binocular Vision , 1950 .

[31]  Michael S. Landy,et al.  Integration of stereopsis and motion shape cues , 1994, Vision Research.

[32]  John P. Wann,et al.  Where you look when you learn to steer , 2004 .

[33]  Thomas V Papathomas,et al.  Experiments on the Role of Painted Cues in Hughes's Reverspectives , 2002, Perception.

[34]  H H Bülthoff,et al.  Integration of depth modules: stereo and shading. , 1988, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[35]  I. Howard.  Seeing in depth, Vol. 1: Basic mechanisms. , 2002 .

[36]  Jan J. Koenderink,et al.  The combined influence of binocular disparity and shading on pictorial shape , 2001, Perception & psychophysics.

[37]  J. Yellott,et al.  Depth Inversion despite Stereopsis: The Appearance of Random-Dot Stereograms on Surfaces Seen in Reverse Perspective , 1979, Perception.