Binocular spatial induction for the perception of depth does not cross the midline

Abstract

Although horizontal binocular retinal disparity between images in the two eyes resulting from their different views of the world has long been the centerpiece for understanding the unique characteristics of stereovision, it does not suffice to explain many binocular phenomena. Binocular depth contrast (BDC), the induction of an appearance of visual pitch in a centrally located line by pitched-from-vertical flanking lines, has particularly been the subject of a good deal of attention in this regard. In the present article, we show that BDC does not cross the median plane but is restricted to the side of the visual field containing a unilateral inducer. These results cannot be explained by the use of retinal disparity alone or in combination with any additional factors or processes previously suggested to account for stereovision. We present a two-channel three-stage neuromathematical model that accounts quantitatively for present and previous BDC results and also accounts for a large number of the most prominent features of binocular pitch perception: Stage 1 of the differencing channel obtains the difference between the retinal orientations of the images in the two eyes separately for the inducer and the test line; stage 1 of the summing channel obtains the corresponding sums. Signals from inducer and test stimuli are combined linearly in each channel in stage 2, and in stage 3 the outputs from the two channels are combined along with a bias signal from the body-referenced mechanism to yield θ′, the model's prediction for the perception of pitch.