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Updated: Jul 30, 2026

Measuring Sensitivity to Viewpoint Change with and without Stereoscopic Cues
Published on: December 4, 2013
Touch can change visual slant perception
M O Ernst1, M S Banks, H H Bülthoff
1Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstr. 38, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany. marc.ernst@tuebingen.mpg.de
Abstract:
The visual system uses several signals to deduce the three-dimensional structure of the environment, including binocular disparity, texture gradients, shading and motion parallax. Although each of these sources of information is independently insufficient to yield reliable three-dimensional structure from everyday scenes, the visual system combines them by weighting the available information; altering the weights would therefore change the perceived structure. We report that haptic feedback (active touch) increases the weight of a consistent surface-slant signal relative to inconsistent signals. Thus, appearance of a subsequently viewed surface is changed: the surface appears slanted in the direction specified by the haptically reinforced signal.
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