Spatial interactions modulate stereoscopic processing of horizontal and vertical disparities

Stereoscopic processing of horizontal and vertical disparities was assessed by measuring how the stereoscopic appearance of test dots near the fixation point was influenced by inducing stimuli in the near periphery. The inducing stimuli were differentially magnified in the two eyes and varied in horizontal eccentricity. As expected, when the inducers were horizontally magnified, the test dots exhibited depth contrast, slanting in depth in a direction opposite the slant of the inducing dots. When the inducers were vertically magnified, the test dots slanted in depth around a vertical axis toward the eye with the larger vertical image (the induced-size effect). However, two lines of evidence suggested that an eccentricity-dependent weighted average of horizontal and vertical components of inducer-dot magnification determined the slant of the test dots. First, as the horizontal eccentricity of the inducing dots was varied, the trend of test-dot slants measured with vertical inducer magnifications was predicted by the trend of test-dot slants measured with horizontal inducer magnifications. Second, test-dot slants measured with a combination of both horizontal and vertical inducer magnification could be predicted by simply adding test-dot slants measured with either horizontal or vertical inducer magnification alone.