In a series of three experiments, observers judged the perceived relative depths of small probe dots, which could be presented in empty space or attached to a smoothly curved surface. Discriminations of ordinal depth were found to be more precise than discriminations of depth intervals. The amount of separation in the projected image between the locations in depth was also manipulated. Performance was higher when observers evaluated the depth relationships between nearby points in the projected images, and lower when the points were more widely separated. This effect was most pronounced when there was a continuous surface in between the points, suggesting that accurate knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of surfaces is primarily limited to relatively small local neighborhoods.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BairdJ CBiersdorfW R, 1967“Quantitative functions for size and distance judgments”Perception & Psychophysics2161–166
2.
BlakemoreC, 1970“The range and scope of binocular depth discrimination in man”Journal of Physiology (London)211599–622
3.
BrookesAStevensK A, 1989“Binocular depth from surfaces versus volumes”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance15479–484
4.
CormackRFoxR, 1985“The computation of disparity and depth in stereograms”Perception & Psychophysics38375–380
5.
EnrightJ T, 1991“Stereo-thresholds: Simultaneity, target proximity and eye movements”Vision Research312093–2100
6.
EnrightJ T, 1996“Sequential stereopsis: A simple demonstration”Vision Research36307–312
7.
FernbergerS W, 1931“On absolute and relative judgments in lifted weight experiments”American Journal of Psychology43560–578
8.
FoleyJ M, 1978“Primary distance perception”, in Handbook of Sensory Physiologyvolume VIII Perception Eds HeldRLeibowitzH WTeuberH L, (New York: Springer) pp 181–213
9.
FosterD HBischofW F, 1991“Thresholds from psychometric functions: Superiority of bootstrap to incremental and probit variance estimators”Psychological Bulletin109152–159
10.
GibsonJ J, 1950The Perception of the Visual World (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin)
11.
HeineL, 1900“Über Orthoskopie oder über die Abhängigkeit relativer Entfernungsschätzungen von der Vorstellung absoluter Entfernung”Albrecht von Grœfe's Archiv für Ophthalmologie51563–572
12.
von HelmholtzH, 1867/1962Treatise on Physiological Opticsvolume 3 (New York: Dover, 1962); English translation by SouthallJ P C, for the Optical Society of America (1925) from the 3rd German edition of Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (Hamburg: Voss, 1909; 1st editionLeipzig: Voss, 1867)
13.
KoenderinkJ Jvan DoornA J, 1995“Relief: Pictorial and otherwise”Image and Vision Computing13321–334
14.
Longuet-HigginsH C, 1982“The role of the vertical dimension in stereoscopic vision”Perception11377–386
15.
LoomisJ MDa SilvaJ AFujitaNFukusimaS S, 1992“Visual space perception and visually directed action”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance18906–921
16.
McKeeS PLeviD MBowneS F, 1990“The imprecision of stereopsis”Vision Research301763–1779
17.
NormanJ FToddJ T, 1993“The perceptual analysis of structure from motion for rotating objects undergoing affine stretching transformations”Perception & Psychophysics53279–291
18.
NormanJ FToddJ T, 1996“The discriminability of local surface structure”Perception25381–398
19.
NormanJ FToddJ TPerottiV JTittleJ S, 1996“The visual perception of three-dimensional length”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance22173–186
20.
NormanJ FToddJ TPhillipsF, 1995“The perception of surface orientation from multiple sources of optical information”Perception & Psychophysics57629–636
21.
OgleK N, 1950Researches in Binocular Vision (Philadelphia, PA: W B Saunders)
22.
OgleK N, 1953“Precision and validity of stereoscopic depth perception from double images”Journal of the Optical Society of America43906–913
23.
OgleK N, 1956“Stereoscopic acuity and the role of convergence”Journal of the Optical Society of America46269–273
24.
OgleK N, 1958“Present status of our knowledge of stereoscopic vision”AMA Archives of Ophthalmology60755–774
25.
RogersB JCagenelloR B, 1989“Disparity curvature and the perception of three-dimensional surfaces”Nature (London)339135–137
26.
ThoulessR H, 1931“Phenomenal regression to the real object. 1”British Journal of Psychology21339–359
27.
ThurstoneL L, 1927“A law of comparative judgment”Psychological Review34273–286
28.
ToddJ TMingollaE, 1983“Perception of surface curvature and direction of illumination from patterns of shading”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance9583–595
29.
ToddJ TMingollaE, 1984“The simulation of curved surfaces from patterns of optical texture”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance10734–739
30.
ToddJ TNormanJ F, 1991“The visual perception of smoothly curved surfaces from minimal apparent motion sequences”Perception & Psychophysics50509–523
31.
ToddJ TNormanJ F, 1995“The visual discrimination of relative surface orientation”Perception24855–866
32.
ToddJ TReichelF D, 1989“Ordinal structure in the visual perception and cognition of smoothly curved surfaces”Psychological Review96643–657
33.
WagnerM, 1985“The metric of visual space”Perception & Psychophysics38483–495
34.
WestheimerG, 1979“Cooperative neural processes involved in stereoscopic acuity”Experimental Brain Research36585–597
35.
WestheimerGMcKeeS P, 1978“Stereoscopic acuity for moving retinal images”Journal of the Optical Society of America68450–455
36.
WestheimerGMcKeeS P, 1979“What prior uniocular processing is necessary for stereopsis?”Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science18614–621
37.
WestheimerGMcKeeS P, 1980“Stereogram design for testing local stereopsis”Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science19802–809
38.
WeverE GZenerK E, 1928“The method of absolute judgment in psychophysics”Psychological Review35466–493
39.
WheatstoneC, 1838“Contributions to the physiology of vision—Part the first. On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved, phenomena of binocular vision”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London128371–394
40.
WrightW D, 1951“The role of convergence in stereoscopic vision”Proceedings of the Physical Society64289–297
