title: Binocular vision enhances target detection by filtering the background.
abstract: In previous studies the authors have shown that the enhanced detectability exhibited by stereoscopically viewed targets can be accounted for by assuming that the binocular system can linearly summate the left-eye and right-eye views of a visual scene. A model based upon this assumption leads to a variety of predictions concerning the detectability of noise-embedded targets. One such prediction is that the detectability of a target in these conditions is highly orientation specific. A test is reported of such a prediction that can be regarded as counter-intuitive: namely, that the detectability, under stereoscopic viewing conditions, of a patch of sinusoidal grating masked by Gaussian noise should change substantially when the grating, oriented at 45 degrees, is rotated until its orientation becomes -45 degrees. The implications of these results for an understanding of the phenomenon of camouflage breaking are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moraglia
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D013028:Space Perception; D013236:Stereognosis; D015348:Vision, Binocular; D014794:Visual Fields