title: Insect stereopsis demonstrated using a 3D insect cinema.
abstract: Stereopsis - 3D vision - has become widely used as a model of perception. However, all our knowledge of possible underlying mechanisms comes almost exclusively from vertebrates. While stereopsis has been demonstrated for one invertebrate, the praying mantis, a lack of techniques to probe invertebrate stereopsis has prevented any further progress for three decades. We therefore developed a stereoscopic display system for insects, using miniature 3D glasses to present separate images to each eye, and tested our ability to deliver stereoscopic illusions to praying mantises. We find that while filtering by circular polarization failed due to excessive crosstalk, "anaglyph" filtering by spectral content clearly succeeded in giving the mantis the illusion of 3D depth. We thus definitively demonstrate stereopsis in mantises and also demonstrate that the anaglyph technique can be effectively used to deliver virtual 3D stimuli to insects. This method opens up broad avenues of research into the parallel evolution of stereoscopic computations and possible new algorithms for depth perception.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Newcastle University, Framlington Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vivek
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nityananda
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Newcastle University, Framlington Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ghaith
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tarawneh
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Newcastle University, Framlington Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ronny
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rosner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Newcastle University, Framlington Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.|M2 Comportement Animal et Humain, École doctorale de Rennes, Vie Agro Santé, University of Rennes 1, 35000, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nicolas
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Newcastle University, Framlington Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Crichton
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, Henry Wellcome Building for Neuroecology, Newcastle University, Framlington Place, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Read
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003867:Depth Perception; D007313:Insecta; D014796:Visual Perception