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Assessing Binocular Central Visual Field and Binocular Eye Movements in a Dichoptic Viewing Condition
Published on: July 21, 2020
Dichoptic motion perception limited to depth of fixation?
Martin Lages1, Alexander Dolia, Erich W Graf
1Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. m.lages@psy.gla.ac.uk
Vision Research
|November 23, 2006
Summary
Dichoptic motion perception, where continuous directional motion is seen with flickering stimuli in each eye, is not dependent on depth cues. This suggests dichoptic motion arises from early visual processing, not a specialized stereo-motion system.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Vision Science
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Counterphase spatio-temporal flicker presented dichoptically can elicit continuous directional motion perception.
- The role of binocular disparity in modulating this dichoptic motion perception remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if dichoptic motion perception is influenced by depth planes (binocular disparity).
- To compare empirical findings with predictions from a computational stereo-motion model.
Main Methods:
- Four observers performed motion direction discrimination tasks with dichoptic motion stimuli.
- Stimuli were presented with varying crossed and uncrossed disparity information.
- Results were compared to simulations of a hybrid energy model of stereo-motion.
Main Results:
- Motion direction discrimination was maximal at zero disparity, irrespective of presented depth cues.
- This finding contrasts with the computational model's prediction of maximal activation at non-zero disparities.
- Discrimination performance did not improve with the presence of disparity information.
Conclusions:
- Perception of dichoptic motion is likely a byproduct of early interocular visual processing at low contrasts.
- It does not appear to result from a dedicated stereo-motion integration system.
- Existing computational models may not fully capture the mechanisms underlying dichoptic motion perception.
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