Similarities between motion parallax and stereopsis in human depth perception

Random dot techniques were used to investigate the human visual system's sensitivity to sinusoidal depth modulations specified by motion parallax information. Thresholds for perceiving depth were found to be smallest when the spatial frequency of the depth corrugations was between 0.2 and 0.5 c/deg visual angle. These data were compared with the equivalent thresholds for perceiving depth corrugations specified by binocular disparity using similar apparatus and psychophysical procedures. The similarity between the sensitivity functions is suggestive of a closer relationship between the two systems than has previously been thought.