Effects of Texture, Illumination, and Surface Reflectance on Stereoscopic Shape Perception

Observers viewed computer-generated stereograms of randomly structured smooth surfaces and were required to judge the perceived local orientation at numerous probe points by adjusting a monocular gauge figure. The surfaces were depicted with specular or Lambertian reflectance functions, either with or without identifiable texture elements, and with varying directions of illumination. The results revealed a strong linear correlation between the judged patterns of relief and the actual depicted objects, though there were systematic differences in the magnitude of depth scaling in the different conditions. In general, the accuracy and reliability of observers' judgments for the smoothly shaded shiny surfaces was slightly lower than for the textured surfaces and slightly higher than for the smoothly shaded Lambertian surfaces. The direction of illumination had no detectable effect on the observers' judgments.

[1]  K. N. Ogle.  Precision and validity of stereoscopic depth perception from double images. , 1953, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[2]  J. Pokorny.  Foundations of Cyclopean Perception , 1972 .

[3]  S. McKee,et al.  Steroscopic acuity for moving retinal images. , 1978, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[4]  Drew H. Abney,et al.  Journal of Experimental Psychology : Human Perception and Performance Influence of Musical Groove on Postural Sway , 2015 .

[5]  E. Mingolla,et al.  Perception of surface curvature and direction of illumination from patterns of shading. , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[6]  J T Todd,et al.  Simulation of curved surfaces from patterns of optical texture. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[7]  Donald D. Hoffman,et al.  Parts of recognition , 1984, Cognition.

[8]  I. Biederman.  Recognition-by-components: a theory of human image understanding. , 1987, Psychological review.

[9]  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.

[10]  J. Todd,et al.  Ordinal structure in the visual perception and cognition of smoothly curved surfaces. , 1989, Psychological review.

[11]  J T Todd,et al.  Perceived depth inversion of smoothly curved surfaces due to image orientation. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[12]  H. Bülthoff,et al.  Does the brain know the physics of specular reflection? , 1990, Nature.

[13]  E. Johnston.  Systematic distortions of shape from stereopsis , 1991, Vision Research.

[14]  A Blake,et al.  Shape from specularities: computation and psychophysics. , 1991, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[15]  J. Koenderink,et al.  Surface perception in pictures , 1992, Perception & psychophysics.

[16]  J. Koenderink,et al.  Perception of local shape from shading , 1993, Perception & psychophysics.

[17]  Andrea J. van Doorn,et al.  Relief: pictorial and otherwise , 1995, Image Vis. Comput..

[18]  J J Koenderink,et al.  On So-Called Paradoxical Monocular Stereoscopy , 1994, Perception.

[19]  James T. Todd,et al.  The perception of surface orientation from multiple sources of optical information , 1995, Perception & psychophysics.

[20]  J T Todd,et al.  Visual discrimination of local surface depth and orientation , 1995, Perception & psychophysics.

[21]  J. Koenderink,et al.  Depth Relief , 1995, Perception.

[22]  J. Todd,et al.  Effects of changing viewing conditions on the perceived structure of smoothly curved surfaces. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[23]  J T Todd,et al.  Surface range and attitude probing in stereoscopically presented dynamic scenes. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[24]  J. Koenderink,et al.  Pictorial surface attitude and local depth comparisons , 1996, Perception & psychophysics.