Simultaneous and Successive Contrast Effects in the Perception of Depth from Motion-Parallax and Stereoscopic Information

Abstract

Prolonged inspection of a three-dimensional corrugated surface resulted in a successive contrast effect, or aftereffect, of depth, whereby a subsequently-viewed physically-flat test surface appeared to be corrugated in depth with the opposite phase to the adapting surface. The aftereffect occurred both when the depth was specified by motion parallax, in the absence of all other sources of depth information, and when it was specified solely by stereoscopic information. The depth aftereffect was measured by ‘nulling’ the apparent depth in the test surface with physical relative motion or binocular disparity until the test surface appeared flat. Up to 70% of the depth in the adapting surface was necessary to null the aftereffect. Simultaneous contrast effects in the perception of three-dimensional surfaces were used to investigate the spatial interactions that exist in the processing of motion-parallax and stereoscopic information. A physically vertical surface appeared to slope in depth in the opposite direction to the slope of a surrounding surface. In this case up to 50% of the slope of the inducing surface was necessary to null the contrast effect. Similar results were again obtained for motion-parallax and stereoscopic depth.