title: Surfaces with steep variations in depth pose difficulties for orientationally tuned disparity filters.
abstract: Surfaces possessing steep variations in depth present severe difficulties for orientationally tuned filter models of stereopsis. These difficulties are discussed in connection with a random-dot stereogram depicting a surface with steep horizontal corrugations. As expected on theoretical grounds, we find that a vertical +/- 45 degrees orientationally filtered version of this stereogram cannot be fused. Moreover, it is demonstrated that a horizontal +/- 45 degrees filtered version can be fused only with difficulty and its stereo percept is poor compared to that of the unfiltered original. It is concluded that orientated filters seem ill-designed to mediate the extraction of disparity cues, at least in the cases under consideration.
mesh_terms: D003867:Depth Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception