Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J E Mayhew.
Various stereoscopic demonstrations are presented which indicate that visual texture discrimination is based on processes which occur after, or at the same time as, the binocular combination of images from the two eyes. Monocularly invisible texture regions can become apparent, and monocularly visible regions can be hidden, by the processes of binocular fusion.
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Surfaces possessing steep variations in depth present severe difficulties for orientationally tuned filter models of stereopsis. These difficulties are discussed in connection with a random-dot stereogram depicting a surface with steep horizontal corrugations. As expected on theoretical grounds, we find that a vertical +/- 45 degrees orientationally filtered version of this stereogram cannot be fused. Moreover, it is demonstrated that a horizontal +/- 45 degrees filtered version can be fused only with difficulty and its stereo percept is poor compared to that of the unfiltered original. It is concluded that orientated filters seem ill-designed to mediate the extraction of disparity cues, at least in the cases under consideration.
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Contrast thresholds for stereopsis from narrow-band-filtered random-dot stereograms were compared with contrast thresholds for simple detection of similar narrow-band noise. Centre frequencies of filters were in the range 2.5--15 cycles deg(-1). It was found that the contrast sensitivity function for stereopsis is similar in shape to that for detection, suggesting that as far as contrast requirements are concerned the mechanisms of global stereopsis do not show a bias in sensitivity to any particular spatial frequency but instead require a constant level of suprathreshold contrast regardless of spatial frequency.
A stereopsis signal carried by an oriented random texture and masked by a similar noise texture is not unmasked when the orientation of the noise is rotated. This result is discussed in connection with the orientational tuning of local and global stereopsis processes.
Contrast thresholds for stereopsis were measured for a variety of bandpass-filtered random-dot stereograms in a series of experiments. The principal finding was that contrast thresholds for stereopsis from 'complex' stereograms composed of mixtures of (a) two widely different spatial frequencies or (b) two or more widely different oriented random textures, are considerably lower than would be expected if stereopsis from such stimuli is mediated by the first component to rise above its own stereopsis contrast threshold. Instead, it appears that stereopsis comes about whenever the supradetection-threshold contrast of a stereogram exceeds a certain level, regardless of whether this contrast is provided by a single component or by a mix of two different ones. The implications of these findings for models of stereopsis are discussed.
A series of experiments is reported on rivalrous-texture stereograms composed of narrowband-filtered random noise. Experiment 1 found that the apparent deth-disparity function for such stereograms was different from that observed with similar but nonrivalrous stimuli. In particular, rivalrous divergent disparities produced the same depth as rivalrous zero disparity and this latter disparity itself produced a significant degree of protruding (i.e. 'convergent') depth in a certain type of rivalrous-texture stereogram. Free inspection was permitted and disparities were in the range 16 min convergent to 16 min divergent. Experiment 2 found no convincing evidence for reliable qualitative depth discriminations from tachistoscopic presentations of rivalrous-texture stereograms, using a forced-choice task requiring a discrimination between 16 min convergent and 16 min divergent conditions. This task was solved easily for equivalent nonrivalrous stimuli. Experiment 3 measured a hitherto unreported binocular depth effect, termed 'paradepth', which is produced by presenting a target in one field only. This effect appears to be a genuine biocular depth effect and not just the result of an ordinary monocular masking depth cue. The size of the depth effect was found to be a function of the width of the target. The overall conclusion derived from the series of experiments is that rivalrous-texture stereograms are complex stimuli capable of yielding curious and unexpected depth effects which are not readily explained in detail within any existing theoretical framework.
The use of the term 'global in the context of stereopsis is discussed. It is concluded that different meanings of this term need to be kept carefully distinguished at all times. The discussion centres around a series of demonstrations introduced by Ramachandran and Nelson, and interpretations are offered for these demonstrations in terms of spatial-frequency-tuned stereopsis channels.
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If the image received by one eye is vertically magnified by a small amount then an illusory tilt is perceived around the vertical axis through the fixation point. This is known as the induced effect and it can be explained by a recent computational theory of binocular vision which treats it as a side-effect of the use of vertical disparities to recover information about the distance to the fixation point and the angle of gaze. We have investigated the consequences of introducing vertical magnifications of some parts of a scene and not others and report here that there is a simple linear relationship between the size of the induced effect and the average vertical magnification. This suggests that a pooling strategy is adopted in the measurement of vertical disparities, a result which fits in well with expectations of the theory.