The influence of non-rigid transformation of binocularly matched information on depth perception

Previous research (Ni, Chen, & Andersen, 2010) found that subjects could perceive a quantitative depth of an occluding surface only when binocularly matched information is also presented with temporal interocular unmatched (IOUM) information. However, the relationship between the binocularly matched information and the IOUM information and how it will affect depth perception in an occlusion scene is still not clear. In the present study, we examined whether the relationship between the binocularly matched information and the IOUM information is rigid or not. In our experiment, we presented 3 columns of dots on the left as binocularly matched information, which were undertaking a non-rigid transformation. Another one single column of dots translates to the right, which would be visible monocularly when being occluded by a featureless subjective surface. The results showed that non-rigid transformation of the binocularly matched information would interfere with subjects' quantitative depth perception, which may be caused by the destruction of the subjects' perception of acknowledging the binocularly matched and unmatched information as an implicit object.