MECHANISMS OF STEREOSCOPIC DEPTH RECONSTRUCTION

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DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the Investigator's Abstract): The goal is to analyze the spatial structure of the processing mechanisms at three levels of the human depth reconstruction process. The proposal is motivated by a 5-stage framework for the convergence of binocular information into a unified depth map of the 3D surfaces confronting the observer. Despite past work on depth processing, many properties of the depth reconstruction process at each level of this framework are still unresolved, particularly the tunings of the channel structure at each processing level. The proposal focuses on evaluation of three levels of the framework with three psychophysical tools: detectability of depth, the depth aftereffect of adaptation to disparity and monocular depth cues, and the form aftereffect of adaptation to the form of a depth image without depth adaptation as such. These tools will be applied to determine the functional organization at the level of the inputs to depth processing, the mechanisms of depth reconstruction and the recognition of the form of the resulting depth image. Although stereopsis is generally viewed as the strongest component of perceived depth, there are many other monocular depth cues that can be processed in parallel to generate dramatic depth impressions (such as differential motion cues, perspective, shape-from-shading, texture gradient, blur, interposition and so on), whose interaction with stereoscopic depth cues has generated much recent interest. A key topic of the proposal is the degree of convergence of these mechanisms into a unified map of the 3D surfaces confronting the observer.