Depth aliasing by the transient-stereopsis system

A fundamental problem in stereo-processing is determining which images in the two eyes correspond to the same object. This problem is particularly pronounced with periodic stimuli where it is theoretically possible to binocularly match a given feature in one eye with any of the identical features in the other eye. One way to minimise the likelihood of the occurrence of such aliasing is to restrict the upper-disparity limit that a particular binocular cell can process to one-half of the spatial period to which the cell is sensitive. While such a restriction would not be a major problem for the sustained stereo-system (which processes small disparities) it would be for the transient system (which is capable of processing disparities as large as 10 degrees). Large-field sinewave variations in luminance were used to compare the propensity of the sustained and transient systems to exhibit depth aliasing--that is to signal a depth sign that corresponds to a binocular match that is greater than the nearest-neighbour pairing. Results were that: depth aliasing was exhibited at short, but not at long durations; decreasing the disparity of the stimulus reduced the likelihood of depth-aliasing; and the critical disparity for this reduction in depth aliasing was dependent upon the spatial frequency of the stimulus, i.e. it was phase, not absolute disparity dependent. Based upon these results, we conclude that while the sustained system implements the half-cycle disparity-processing limit, the transient system does not.