Stimulus Orientation And Human Stereo Vision

Main Category: Hypertension
Also Included In: Eye Health / Blindness
Article Date: 09 Sep 2006 - 8:00 PDT

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Having two eyes comes in handy when gauging distances. Because each eye receives a slightly different image of an object on the retina, the disparity allows us to compute the distance to the object, as well as its position relative to nearby objects. The conventional view is that depth perception has little to do with the actual appearance of an object, but work by Farell suggests otherwise. Subjects viewed a series of visual stimuli on a computer screen consisting of a central circular patch and a surrounding ring and judged whether the central element was closer to or farther from the surrounding one. When the patterns on the two elements were in the same orientation, the observer could judge relative depth more accurately than when orientations differed. Thus, in the "real world," the orientation of textures on the surfaces of objects can affect our perception of their relative depth.

Bart Farell

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