The Role of Binocular Disparity in Rapid Scene and Pattern Recognition. (April 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Valsecchi, Matteo; Caziot, Baptiste; Backus, Benjamin T.; Gegenfurtner, Karl R.
• Is Part Of: I-Perception. Volume 4:Number 2(2013)
• Page Start: 122
• Page End: 136
• Publication Date: 2013-04
• Subjects: stereo vision -- natural image -- scene recognition -- random-dot stereogram -- visual masking; Perception -- Periodicals; Visual perception -- Periodicals; Perception; Perception; Electronic journals; Periodical; Fulltext; Internet Resources; Periodicals; Periodicals; 153.7
• DOI: 10.1068/i0587
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2041-6695

Abstract

We investigated the contribution of binocular disparity to the rapid recognition of scenes and simpler spatial patterns using a paradigm combining backward masked stimulus presentation and short-term match-to-sample recognition. First, we showed that binocular disparity did not contribute significantly to the recognition of briefly presented natural and artificial scenes, even when the availability of monocular cues was reduced. Subsequently, using dense random dot stereograms as stimuli, we showed that observers were in principle able to extract spatial patterns defined only by disparity under brief, masked presentations. Comparing our results with the predictions from a cue-summation model, we showed that combining disparity with luminance did not per se disrupt the processing of disparity. Our results suggest that the rapid recognition of scenes is mediated mostly by a monocular comparison of the images, although we can rely on stereo in fast pattern recognition.