Volume 5, Number 11, Article 1, Pages 901-927 doi:10.1167/5.11.1 http://journalofvision.org/5/11/1/ ISSN 1534-7362
All Pulfrich-like illusions can be explained without joint encoding of motion and disparity
Jenny C. A. Read
Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
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Bruce G. Cumming
Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
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Abstract

In the Pulfrich effect, an interocular time delay results in the perception of depth. Two modified versions, the stroboscopic Pulfrich effect and dynamic visual noise with a delay, are generally explained by postulating an early stage of space/time-inseparable filtering, encoding motion and disparity jointly. However, most disparity sensors in monkey V1 do not show joint motion/disparity encoding, and we recently showed that depth perception in the stroboscopic Pulfrich effect is equally compatible with space/time-separable filtering. Here, we demonstrate that this filtering can be implemented with a population of physiologically plausible energy model units. Similar results are obtained whether the neurons are pure disparity sensors (like most V1 neurons) or joint motion/disparity sensors (like MT). We also demonstrate that the dynamic noise stimulus produces correlations between the activity in pure disparity sensors, and in a separate population of pure motion sensors. These correlations are sufficient to explain the percept. Thus, joint encoding of motion and disparity is not required to explain depth perception in Pulfrich-like stimuli: a brain which encoded motion and disparity in entirely separate neuronal pathways could still experience all of these illusions.

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History
Received May 25, 2005; published December 19, 2005
Citation
Read, J. C. A., & Cumming, B. G. (2005). All Pulfrich-like illusions can be explained without joint encoding of motion and disparity. Journal of Vision, 5(11):1, 901-927, http://journalofvision.org/5/11/1/, doi:10.1167/5.11.1.
Keywords
binocular vision, computational modeling, interocular delay, primary visual cortex, Pulfrich effect, psychophysics
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