Preprint manuscript of:
Humans ignore motion and stereo cues in favor of a fictional stable world
Glennerster, A., Tcheang, L., Gilson, S.J., Fitzgibbon, A.W. and Parker, A.J. (2006)
gtgfp.pdf
Abstract
As we move through the world, our eyes acquire a
sequence of images. The information from this sequence is sufficient
to determine the structure of a three-dimensional scene, up to a scale
factor determined by the distance that the eyes have moved (Faugeras,
1993; Hartley and Zisserman, 2000). Previous evidence shows that the
human visual system accounts for the distance the observer has walked
(Gogel, 1990; Bradshaw, Parton and Glennerster, 2000) and the
separation of the eyes (Helmholtz, 1866; Judge and Bradford, 1988;
Johnston, 1991; Brenner and van Damme, 1999) when judging the scale,
shape, and distance of objects. However, in an immersive
virtual-reality environment, observers failed to notice when a scene
expanded or contracted, despite having consistent information about
scale from both distance walked and binocular vision. This failure led
to large errors in judging the size of objects. The pattern of errors
cannot be explained by assuming a visual reconstruction of the scene
with an incorrect estimate of interocular separation or distance
walked. Instead, it is consistent with a Bayesian model of cue
integration in which the efficacy of motion and disparity cues is
greater at near viewing distances. Our results imply that observers
are more willing to adjust their estimate of interocular separation or
distance walked than to accept that the scene has changed in size.
ScienceDirect link to article (if you have a subscription).
Some movies illustrating the experiment
I can email a pdf of the article on request.
Virtual Reality publications
ag home