The perception and recognition of natural object shape from deforming and static shadows

In this study of the informativeness of shadows for the perception of object shape, observers viewed shadows cast by a set of natural solid objects and were required to discriminate between them. In some conditions the objects underwent rotation in depth while in other conditions they remained stationary, thus producing both deforming and static shadows. The orientation of the light source casting the shadows was also varied, leading to further alterations in the shape of the shadows. When deformations in the shadow boundary were present, the observers were able to reliably recognize and discriminate between the objects, invariant over the shadow distortions produced by movements of the light source. The recognition performance for the static shadows depended critically upon the content of the specific views that were shown. These results support the idea that there are invariant features of shadow boundaries that permit the recognition of shape (cf Koenderink, 1984 Perception 13 321-330).