Vertical disparities, differential perspective and binocular stereopsis

TO calculate the depth difference between a pair of points on a three-dimensional surface from binocular disparities, it is necessary to know the absolute distance to the surface 1,2 . Traditionally, it has been assumed that this information is derived from non-visual sources such as the vergence angle of the eyes 3,4 . It has been shown 5,6 that the horizontal gradient of vertical disparity between the images in the two eyes also contains information about the fixation distance 7–9 . Recent results 10,11 , however, indicated that manipulations of the vertical disparity gradient have no effect on either the perceived shape or the perceived depth of surfaces defined by horizontal disparities. Following the reasoning of Longuet-Higgins 12 and Tyler 13 , we suggest that vertical disparities are best understood as a consequence of perspective viewing from two different vantage points and the results we report here show that the human visual system is able to exploit vertical disparities and use them to scale the perceived depth and size of stereoscopic surfaces, if the field of view is sufficiently large.