Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1996 Jan 23;93(2):634–639. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.2.634

Binocular visual surface perception.

K Nakayama 1
PMCID: PMC40103  PMID: 8570607

Abstract

Binocular disparity, the differential angular separation between pairs of image points in the two eyes, is the well-recognized basis for binocular distance perception. Without denying disparity's role in perceiving depth, we describe two perceptual phenomena, which indicate that a wider view of binocular vision is warranted. First, we show that disparity can play a critical role in two-dimensional perception by determining whether separate image fragments should be grouped as part of a single surface or segregated as parts of separate surfaces. Second, we show that stereoscopic vision is not limited to the registration and interpretation of binocular disparity but that it relies on half-occluded points, visible to one eye and not the other, to determine the layout and transparency of surfaces. Because these half-visible points are coded by neurons carrying eye-of-origin information, we suggest that the perception of these surface properties depends on neural activity available at visual cortical area V1.

Full text

PDF
634

Images in this article

635Fig. 2
on p.635
636Fig. 4
on p.636
637Fig. 6
on p.637
638Fig. 7
on p.638
638Fig. 8
on p.638

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Anderson B. L., Nakayama K. Toward a general theory of stereopsis: binocular matching, occluding contours, and fusion. Psychol Rev. 1994 Jul;101(3):414–445. doi: 10.1037/0033-295x.101.3.414. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Anderson B. L. The role of partial occlusion in stereopsis. Nature. 1994 Jan 27;367(6461):365–368. doi: 10.1038/367365a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Barlow H. B., Blakemore C., Pettigrew J. D. The neural mechanism of binocular depth discrimination. J Physiol. 1967 Nov;193(2):327–342. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1967.sp008360. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Burkhalter A., Van Essen D. C. Processing of color, form and disparity information in visual areas VP and V2 of ventral extrastriate cortex in the macaque monkey. J Neurosci. 1986 Aug;6(8):2327–2351. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.06-08-02327.1986. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Felleman D. J., Van Essen D. C. Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex. Cereb Cortex. 1991 Jan-Feb;1(1):1–47. doi: 10.1093/cercor/1.1.1-a. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Metelli F. The perception of transparency. Sci Am. 1974 Apr;230(4):90–98. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0474-90. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Nakayama K., Shimojo S. Experiencing and perceiving visual surfaces. Science. 1992 Sep 4;257(5075):1357–1363. doi: 10.1126/science.1529336. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Nakayama K., Shimojo S., Ramachandran V. S. Transparency: relation to depth, subjective contours, luminance, and neon color spreading. Perception. 1990;19(4):497–513. doi: 10.1068/p190497. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Nakayama K., Shimojo S., Silverman G. H. Stereoscopic depth: its relation to image segmentation, grouping, and the recognition of occluded objects. Perception. 1989;18(1):55–68. doi: 10.1068/p180055. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Nakayama K., Shimojo S. da Vinci stereopsis: depth and subjective occluding contours from unpaired image points. Vision Res. 1990;30(11):1811–1825. doi: 10.1016/0042-6989(90)90161-d. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Poggio G. F., Gonzalez F., Krause F. Stereoscopic mechanisms in monkey visual cortex: binocular correlation and disparity selectivity. J Neurosci. 1988 Dec;8(12):4531–4550. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.08-12-04531.1988. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Raymond J. E. Complete interocular transfer of motion adaptation effects on motion coherence thresholds. Vision Res. 1993 Sep;33(13):1865–1870. doi: 10.1016/0042-6989(93)90177-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. SEKULER R. W., GANZ L. Aftereffect of seen motion with a stabilized retinal image. Science. 1963 Feb 1;139(3553):419–420. doi: 10.1126/science.139.3553.419. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Shimojo S., Nakayama K. Real world occlusion constraints and binocular rivalry. Vision Res. 1990;30(1):69–80. doi: 10.1016/0042-6989(90)90128-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Treisman A. Perceptual grouping and attention in visual search for features and for objects. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1982 Apr;8(2):194–214. doi: 10.1037//0096-1523.8.2.194. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Zeki S. M. Functional specialisation in the visual cortex of the rhesus monkey. Nature. 1978 Aug 3;274(5670):423–428. doi: 10.1038/274423a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES