Interrelation of the effects of binocular disparity and perspective cues on judgments of depth and height

Abstract

The effects of binocular disparity (aniseikonia) and perspective cues operating together on judgments of depth and height were studied, both when these stimulus variables operated in the same direction and when they were in conflict. Both depth cues were effective upon the perception of depth and height. The effects of binocular disparity and perspective cues upon perceived depth were found to be additive. The effects of these depth cues upon perceived height showed some interaction in the sense that, operating together, the effect of the perspective cue was stronger than the separate effect of the perspective cue, both when binocular disparity and perspective cues operated in the same direction and when they were in conflict. This interactive effect increased with increasing strength of the perspective cues. The size-distance invariance hypothesis was confirmed under the present experimental conditions. By a causal analysis of inference, this invariant relation could be explained in the following way: both the perceived depth and the perceived height of the sides of the patterns were directly determined by binocular disparity and perspective cues, but the perceived height was also indirectly determined through change of perceived depth. A direct causal relation between perceived depth and perceived height was found.Harker (1958) found that when binocular disparity was supplemented with monocular cues to depth, observers had better stereoacuity than when the binocular cues alone were present. Harker suggested that this could be attributed to the fact that binocular and monocular cues provide the observer with independent information about the depth interval between two objects. The observers integrated the monocular and binocular stimulation in a supplemental manner. Jameson and Hurvich (1959) concluded, in an experiment on the relation between stereoscopic acuity and observation distance, that when multiple stimulus factors are permitted to vary naturally with changes in object distance, all of these multiple factors seem to contribute cooperatively and in a simple summative fashion to the observer's perceptual sensitivity to distance changes. The monocular cues in neither experiment were fully identified.In the present study, we will investigate the way in which binocular disparity and perspective cues affect the perception of depth, both when these cues operate in the same direction and when they are in conflict. As cues to the perception of depth or distance are also implicated in size perception, we will simultaneously study the effects of binocular disparity and perspective cues on the perception of size.There are a number of papers on the effect of combining monocular depth cues with binocular disparity upon perceived depth. Very few studies have simultaneously investigated their effects on both perceived depth and perceived size. Most studies on perceived depth have concentrated upon the effects of cue conflict and upon the relative strengths of the cues. These cue-conflict studies have not always been ...

Bi-stability in perceived slant when binocular disparity and monocular perspective specify different slants

“…Many investigators have been interested in the interaction of binocular and monocular cues. Quite a few have varied monocular cues (Banks & Backus, 1998;Buckley & Frisby, 1993;Clark, Smith, & Rabe, 1956;Frisby, Buckley, & Horsman, 1995;Frisby, Buckley, & Freeman, 1996;Gillam, 1968;Gillam & Ryan, 1992;Harwerth et al, 1998;Ryan & Gillam, 1994;Smith, 1967;Stevens & Brookes, 1988;van Ee, Banks, & Backus, 1999;Youngs, 1976), and others have gone so far as to present binocular cues that specified a depth sign that was opposite to the depth sign specified by monocular cues (Allison & Howard, 2000a;Allison & Howard, 2000b;Braunstein, Andersen, Rouse, & Tittle, 1986;Bülthoff & Mallot, 1988;Bülthoff & Mallot, 1990;Dosher, Sperling, & Wurst, 1986;Gillam & Cook, 2001;Rogers & Collett, 1989;Turner, Braunstein, & Andersen, 1997;van der Meer, 1979). Most of the above-mentioned studies, however, were not concerned primarily with the study of bi-stability.…”

A theory of phenomenal geometry and its applications

“…Under these conditions, the visual system presumably accepts both sources as contributing to the same perception. A third kind of evidence is found in situations in which the perception represents a compromise between conflicting cues (Gillam, 1968;Gogel, 1970;Ittelson, 1968;Schriver, 1925;van der Meer, 1979). In these situations, the different sources contribute to the same final perception, which quantitatively is often unlike the perception expected from either source alone.…”

Span of attention, backward masking, and reaction time

“…An inference method for the determination of causal relations by means of partial correlations was developed by Blalock (1962) and Simon (1954)and has been applied to perceptual problems by Coren and Ward (1979), Oyama (1974aOyama ( , 1974bOyama ( , 1977, and van der Meer (1979). According to this model, if the effect of an experimental variable (X) on a dependent variable (Y) is shown by experimental data or by a significant simple correlation between X and Y, and the partial correlation between these two variables with a third variable (Z) held constant (rXY'z) is nearly zero, the effect of X on Y is considered to be mediated by Z.…”