Preprint manuscript of:

  • Disparity with respect to a local reference plane as a dominant cue for stereoscopic detection of depth relief
    Petrov, Y. and Glennerster, A. Vision Research, 46, 4321-4332 (2006) 
    pg.pdf  
    Abstract
    Earlier studies showed that the disparity with respect to other visible points could not explain stereoacuity performance, nor could various spatial derivatives of disparity (Glennerster et al, 2002; Petrov and Glennerster, 2004). Two possible cues remain: (i) local changes in disparity gradient or (ii) disparity with respect to an interpolated line drawn through the reference points. Here, we aimed to distinguish between these two cues. Subjects judged, in a 2AFC paradigm, whether a target dot was in front of a plane defined by three reference dots or, in other experiments, in front of a line defined by two reference dots. We tested different slants of the reference line or plane and different locations of the target relative to the reference points. For slanted reference lines or plane, stereoacuity changes little as the target position was varied. For judgments relative to frontoparallel reference line, stereoacuity did vary with target position, but less than would be predicted by disparity gradient change. This provides evidence for disparity with respect to the reference plane being an important cue. We discuss the potential advantages of this measure in generating a representation of surface relief that is invariant to viewpoint transformations.

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    Yury Petrov
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