Judging Distance across Texture Discontinuities

Abstract

Sinai et al (1998 Nature 395 497-500) showed that less distance is perceived along a ground surface that spans two differently textured regions than along a surface that is uniformly textured. We examined the effect of texture continuity on judged distance using computer-generated displays of simulated surfaces in five experiments. Discontinuities were produced by using different textures, the same texture reversed in contrast, or the same texture shifted horizontally. The simulated surface was either a ground plane or a frontoparallel plane. For all textures and both orientations, less distance was judged in the discontinuous conditions than in continuous conditions. We propose that when a surface contains a texture discontinuity, a small area adjacent to the perceived boundary is excluded from judged distances.

The ground dominance effect in the perception of relative distance in 3-D scenes is mainly due to characteristics of the ground surface

“…Our results concur with those of an increasing number of studies in recent years demonstrating the importance of the ground surface in scene perception (e.g., Feria et al, 2003;Meng & Sedgwick, 2001Ni et al, 2004Ni et al, , 2005Ni et al, , 2007Ooi et al, 2001;Sinai et al, 1998;. Future studies are needed to examine the relative influence of type of surface (ground vs. ceiling) and location in the visual field in other visual tasks, such as visual search and absolute and relative distance judgments.…”

“…This discontinuity effect was also found by J. Wu, Z. J. He, and Ooi (2002) using virtual reality displays, and by Feria et al (2003) using computer-simulated scenes. Z. J.…”

“…He, & Shimojo, 1995;cf. Sedgwick, 1986), and have examined how manipulating information on the ground surface could affect the perceived location of objects in 3-D scenes (see, e.g., Feria, Braunstein, & Andersen, 2003;Meng & Sedgwick, 2001Ni, Braunstein, & Andersen, 2004, 2007Sauer, Braunstein, Saidpour, & Andersen, 2002;Sinai, Ooi, & Z. J. He, 1998;.…”

The ground dominance effect in the perception of 3-D layout

“…Whereas previous studies (Feria et al, 2003;He & Nakayama, 1992, 1994a, 1994bMeng & Sedgwick, 2001Sinai et al, 1998) revealed the importance of a surface, especially a ground surface, in organizing 3-D scenes, our results, together with those of McCarley and He (2000), point to a unique role for the ground surface, among all environmental surfaces, in the perception of the visual world. However, the question of what leads to this dominance of the ground surface needs to be answered.…”

“…They found that perceived distance, measured either by perceptual judgments of absolute distance or visually cued blind walking, was accurate on a continuous ground surface, underestimated when the ground surface was composed of two distinct textured regions, and overestimated when the ground surface was interrupted by a gap. Feria, Braunstein, and Andersen (2003) used a computergenerated display to examine this "discontinuity effect" and found that it exists even when the same texture is present in both regions, but one region is offset horizontally to produce an implicit contour.…”