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Review
. 2023 Jan 30;378(1869):20210462.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0462. Epub 2022 Dec 13.

Stereopsis for rapidly moving targets

Michael Morgan  1
Affiliations
Review

Stereopsis for rapidly moving targets

Michael Morgan. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. .

Abstract

Stereoscopic depth perception is possible with luminance-defined target velocities at least as high as 600° s-1, up to the limit of 30 Hz imposed by the high-temporal frequency cut-off of the eye. The limitation for perceiving depth from stereo disparity of moving targets is not their velocity but the temporal frequency bandwidth of the eye, which is affected by adaption state. Stereoacuity for a depth shift in a horizontally moving grating depends not on spatial disparity between corresponding luminance points in spatial units of arc min, but on the spatial shift as a fixed proportion of the period of the grating, in other words, on the phase angle difference between the two eyes, as is also the case for obliquely orientated, stationary gratings. Phase differences explain not only the classic Pulfrich stereophenomenon but its equivalent with dynamic visual noise, and a new effect in which depth results from interocular phase differences in luminance modulation. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'New approaches to 3D vision'.

Keywords: motion perception; psychophysics; stereoscopy; vision.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Morgan & Watt [16] used separate moving bars to the left and right eyes in a dichoptic display. The movement vector of the bars is shown by arrows. These vectors were identical in the two eyes, and so was the instantaneous position of the bars. However, the luminance of the two bars was modulated sinusoidally so that that over time they would have traced out two sinusoidal gratings, with a phase difference between the eyes. Apparently, the brain was sensitive to the temporal modulation, because the phase difference produced an apparent depth shift in the moving bar. A pair of quadrature receptive fields in the two eyes [17] would respond with greater modulation depth to out-of-phase (90°) luminance modulation than to in-phase (0°). (Online version in colour.)
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The left-hand panel is an x,t plot of a single row (x) of the random-noise pattern evolving over time (t, vertical axis) with a sinusoidal modulation of its luminance. The right-hand panel shows the corresponding power spectrum, which contains only temporal frequencies of ±ω but a broad band of spatial frequencies, and thus of velocities. When such a stimulus is viewed dichoptically with a phase lag in the temporal modulation between the two eyes, it is seen to rotate in depth around a vertical axis (modified from [18]).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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  • New Approaches to 3D Vision.
    Linton P, Morgan MJ, Read JCA, Vishwanath D, Creem-Regehr SH, Domini F. Linton P, et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2023 Jan 30;378(1869):20210443. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0443. Epub 2022 Dec 13. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2023. PMID: 36511413 Free PMC article.

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