Human factors involved in perception and action in a natural stereoscopic world: an up-to-date review with guidelines for stereoscopic displays and stereoscopic virtual reality (VR)

In stereoscopic perception of a three-dimensional world, binocular disparity might be thought of as the most important cue to 3D depth perception. Nevertheless, in reality there are many other factors involved before the 'final' conscious and subconscious stereoscopic perception, such as luminance, contrast, orientation, color, motion, and figure-ground extraction (pop-out phenomenon). In addition, more complex perceptual factors exist, such as attention and its duration (an equivalent of 'brain zooming') in relation to physiological central vision, In opposition to attention to peripheral vision and the brain 'top-down' information in relation to psychological factors like memory of previous experiences and present emotions. The brain's internal mapping of a pure perceptual world might be different from the internal mapping of a visual-motor space, which represents an 'action-directed perceptual world.' In addition, psychological factors (emotions and fine adjustments) are much more involved in a stereoscopic world than in a flat 2D-world, as well as in a world using peripheral vision (like VR, using a curved perspective representation, and displays, as natural vision does) as opposed to presenting only central vision (bi-macular stereoscopic vision) as in the majority of typical stereoscopic displays. Here is presented the most recent and precise information available about the psycho-neuro- physiological factors involved in the perception of stereoscopic three-dimensional world, with an attempt to give practical, functional, and pertinent guidelines for building more 'natural' stereoscopic displays.