Abstract
Two experiments tested the ability of subjects to perceive the depths of three-dimensional (3-D) objects oscillating behind a series of occluding bars. Occlusion was manipulated by the spatial period of the occluding bar series as well as by its duty cycle (the proportion of field of view that was not occluded). It was found that the estimates of perceived 3-D shape from motion parallax were remarkably unaffected when the projected image of a rotating 3-D object was partially occluded. Occlusion of 60% of the object had little effect on perceived shape, as judged by estimates of perceived depth, and even occlusion of 90% of the object produced only slight reductions in perceived depth in many cases. It was also found that even when there were no obvious occluding boundaries, judgments of depth were relatively unaffected.
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This research was supported by Grant 15129 from NINCDS and by a grant from the Academic Senate of the University of California, Santa Barbara. A preliminary report of Experiment 1 was presented at the annual meeting for the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Sarasota, FL, in 1989.
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Eby, D.W., Loomis, J.M. The minimal effect of occlusion on perceived depth from motion parallax. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 31, 253–256 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334921
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334921