Monocular gap stereopsis: manipulation of the outer edge disparity and the shape of the gap

A binocular stimulus that arises when two black frontal plane surfaces located at different depths have a gap between them for one eye but not for the other eye is interesting since the gap is monocular--it has no matching contours in the other eye--and yet binocular processes resolve a depth step effortlessly (Vision Research, 39, 493). In two experiments we investigate the processes and constraints underlying this depth resolution by varying the width of the solid image (the one without the gap) and the shape of the gap. The results show that the processes underlying monocular gap stereopsis can handle a situation in which the images of two surfaces in depth are effectively overlapping for one eye's view with the other eye seeing between them and that binocular depth is seen even when there is no disparity present. We also show that under ecologically appropriate conditions, depth curvature and warping can result when the monocular gap has a curved or warped edge. Both these experiments imply that the visual system responds to the ambiguity of the stimulus by adopting a minimum slant constraint.

[1]  I. Ohzawa,et al.  The binocular organization of simple cells in the cat's visual cortex. , 1986, Journal of neurophysiology.

[2]  Osamu Watanabe,et al.  Stereo algorithm that extracts a depth cue from interocularly unpaired points , 1999, Neural Networks.

[3]  Ken Nakayama,et al.  Quantitative depth for a phantom surface can be based on cyclopean occlusion cues alone , 1999, Vision Research.

[4]  S. Grossberg,et al.  A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and three-dimensional surface perception , 2003, Vision Research.

[5]  S. Grossberg,et al.  Cortical computation of stereo disparity , 1998, Vision Research.

[6]  B Gillam,et al.  The Role of Monocular Regions in Stereoscopic Displays , 1988, Perception.

[7]  Tomaso Poggio,et al.  Cooperative computation of stereo disparity , 1988 .

[8]  W H Ehrenstein,et al.  Early Demonstrations of Subjective Contours, Amodal Completion, and Depth from Half-Occlusions: “Stereoscopic Experiments with Silhouettes” by Adolf von Szily (1921) , 1998, Perception.

[9]  Parvati Dev,et al.  Perception of Depth Surfaces in Random-Dot Stereograms: A Neural Model , 1975, Int. J. Man Mach. Stud..

[10]  K Nakayama,et al.  Experiencing and perceiving visual surfaces. , 1992, Science.

[11]  Michael Cook,et al.  Monocular Discs in the Occlusion Zones of Binocular Surfaces Do Not Have Quantitative Depth—A Comparison with Panum's Limiting Case , 2003, Perception.

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

[13]  Shinsuke Shimojo,et al.  Da vinci stereopsis: Depth and subjective occluding contours from unpaired image points , 1990, Vision Research.

[14]  J P Frisby,et al.  PMF: A Stereo Correspondence Algorithm Using a Disparity Gradient Limit , 1985, Perception.

[15]  Lei Liu,et al.  Quantitative stereoscopic depth without binocular correspondence , 1994, Nature.

[16]  Michael J Pianta,et al.  Paired and unpaired features can be equally effective in human depth perception , 2003, Vision Research.

[17]  H. Ono,et al.  Occlusion as a depth cue in the Wheatstone-Panum limiting case , 1992, Perception & psychophysics.

[18]  Peter N. Belhumeur,et al.  A Bayesian approach to binocular steropsis , 1996, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[19]  David Brewster.  2. On the Law of Visible Position in Single and Binocular Vision, and on the Representation of Solid Figures by the union of two dissimilar plane figures on the Retinæ Part I , 1845 .

[20]  Stephen Grossberg,et al.  Cortical dynamics of three-dimensional surface perception: Binocular and half-occluded scenic images , 1997, Neural Networks.

[21]  Barton L. Anderson,et al.  The role of partial occlusion in stereopsis , 1994, Nature.

[22]  Thomas O. Binford,et al.  Depth from Edge and Intensity Based Stereo , 1981, IJCAI.

[23]  D Marr,et al.  A computational theory of human stereo vision. , 1979, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[24]  Hiroshi Ono,et al.  Content and context of monocular regions determine perceived depth in random dot, unpaired background and phantom stereograms , 2002, Vision Research.

[25]  weiland A. von Szily.  Stereoskopische Versuche mit Schattenrissen , 2005, Albrecht von Graefes Archiv für Ophthalmologie.

[26]  D. Brewster.  XXIV.—On the Law of Visible Position in Single and Binocular Vision, and on the representation of Solid Figures by the union of dissimilar Plane Pictures on the Retina , 1844, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

[27]  Jitendra Malik,et al.  Determining Three-Dimensional Shape from Orientation and Spatial Frequency Disparities , 1991, ECCV.

[28]  Alan L. Yuille,et al.  Occlusions and binocular stereo , 1992, International Journal of Computer Vision.

[29]  B. Julesz,et al.  A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF ILLUSORY CONTOUR FORMATION IN STEREOPSIS , 1995 .

[30]  David Mumford,et al.  A Bayesian treatment of the stereo correspondence problem using half-occluded regions , 1992, Proceedings 1992 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.