The Effects of Vertical Gradient of Disparity and Combination Mode of Features on the Occurrence of Double Fusion in Panum's Limiting Case

Abstract

Panum's limiting case generally refers to the phenomenon that two features presented to one eye and a single feature presented to the other are combined and then perceived as two features at different depths. It is still not clear why experimental results derived from the Panum-type configuration (all lines parallel) support a double fusion viewpoint, but they do not for the Wheatstone-type configuration (one line not parallel to the others). Some experimental results support the double fusion theory, while others do not, even under a small disparity. Here we report that, under a small disparity, when the vertical gradients of the horizontal disparity of dichoptic feature pairs in previous Wheatstone-type configurations were increased or decreased, the evidence which was considered to be very convincing in previous studies, either supporting or against the double fusion viewpoint, was challenged, and even turned to support the opposite view. Moreover, it was discovered that changes in the way features were arranged altered the results. Together, these results indicate that double fusion is the common basis for all kinds of Panum-type configurations. But for the Wheatstone-type configurations double fusion is also constrained by the vertical gradient of disparity of the configurations in addition to disparity and influenced by the degree of similarity/conflict between binocular cues and monocular cues resulting from different arrangements of features.