36.2: Age Differences in the Use of Binocular Disparity and Pictorial Depth Cues in 3D‐Graphics Environments

Abstract

We find that pseudo-stereoanomalous observers, who did not use disparity information for depth judgments in 3D-graphics environments although they were not stereoanomalous, tended to be younger (21.4%, 17-24 years old) than young-middle age (11.4%, 25-39 years old). Approximately 80% of older (50-83 years old) were also pseudo-stereoanomalous observers.Author Keywords depth perception; stereopsis; aging; 3D-graphics environments; binocular disparity; pictorial depth cue. Objective and BackgroundRecently, 3D-graphics environments, such as movie theaters, home televisions, and video games, are rapidly gaining in popularity, and people of all ages have a lot of chances to view 3D contents. Although binocular disparity plays an important role in the perception of depth, it is well known that there are large individual differences in the availability of binocular disparity. For example, many elderly adults have defective stereopsis because of degraded performance of senescent cerebral or retinal cells [1]. In addition, over 10% of observers, who do not have any physically visual disabilities, perceive virtually no depth depending on the disparity information [2]-[3], i.e. they are stereoanomalous observers.More interestingly, quite a few people cannot fully process information from binocular disparity in a specific 3D-graphic environment even though they can discriminate small levels of disparity (e.g., 4′) in a simple stereoscopic test. Fujisaki et al. [4] examined the individual differences in use of disparity information in the prevailing 3D-graphics environments that were expected to give observers rich depth perception through a combination of binocular disparity and monocular pictorial cues [5]. Using simple 3D-graphic stimuli containing binocular disparity and shading, one of the most effective pictorial depth cues [6]- [7], Fujisaki et al. demonstrated that 30% of young observers, aged 19 to 25 years, relied only on information from shading, rather than from disparity, to perceive the depth of the 3D stimuli even though they were not stereoanomalous. We call them pseudo-stereoanomalous observers.Given that the individual ability of depth perception is dependent on age [1], it is likely that the ratio of the pseudo-stereoanomalous observers varies with age. In this study, we investigated the relationship between age and the rate of pseudo-stereoanomalous observers. 151 individuals with ages ranging from 17 to 85 years observed a simple 3D-graphic stimuli containing binocular disparity and shading as depth cues, which was used in Fujisaki et al. [4], and evaluated the subjective depth of the 3D stimulus. Results Experimental methods Apparatus and StimuliFull-HD (i.e., WUXGA 1920 × 1200) 24-inch stereoscopic liquidcrystal displays with 60 Hz refresh rate (True3Di SDM-240, Redrover) remained stationary at 930 mm from the observer (approximately three times the height of the screen, which is standard viewing distance for high resolution television). Before the experiment, the stereoscopic vision of all ob...

Clinically Normal Stereopsis Does Not Ensure Performance Benefit from Stereoscopic 3D Depth Cues

“…It should be noted here that standard clinical practice usually requires much better stereoacuities of 30-40 arc sec or lower (in this case, six times better) to be considered normal (e.g., Fielder & Moseley, 1996). In any case, Kihara et al (2013) discovered that participants tended to fall into one of four classes: (1) A cuecombination group who utilized both types of depth cues to perform their depth judgments (41.8%); (2) a disparity-cue group who seemed to utilize only binocular disparity cues to perform the task (16.4%); (3) a pictorial-cue group who seemed to utilize only monocular pictorial cues (32.8%); and (4) a low-depth perception group who reported the stimuli as appearing flat regardless of stimulus condition (9.0%).…”

“…Pseudo-Stereoanomaly Kihara, Fujisaki, Ohtsuka, Miyao, Shimamura, Arai, and Taniguchi (2013) conducted a depth magnitude estimation task using combinations of monocular and binocular cues to depth. Three levels of shading and three levels of crossed disparity (0, 4, and 8 arc min) were tested across a sample 134 viewers of various ages.…”

“…In other words, individual viewers seem to differentially favor some depth cues over others. Kihara et al (2013) referred to the pictorial-cue group as possessing pseudo-anomalous stereopsis since these viewers did not utilize the disparity cue information in their depth judgments, even though they could apparently see S3D cues (on the Titmus test). They also hypothesized that this pseudostereoanomalous group would abandon their cue-weighting strategy, and utilize stereopsis cues, for tasks in which extremely accurate depth judgments are required (as opposed to the rough depth estimation required for their task), since binocular disparity gives higher fidelity depth information relative to pictorial cues (p. 502).…”

Aging and availability of binocular disparity and pictorial depth cues in 3D graphics contents

“…All these participants were presented with a task in which they had to observe a simple 3D graphic stimuli containing binocular disparity and shading as depth cues (as in Fujisaki et al .,), then judge the depth of 3D stimuli. A portion of this work was previously presented at the Society for Information Display 2013 . Note that we are changing terminology ‘pseudo‐stereoanomaly’ in the previous studies to ‘pseudo‐stereoblindness’ in this paper to describe observers who pass stereovision clinical tests but who do not seem to use the stereo cues to make subjective depth judgments.…”

“…A portion of this work was previously presented at the Society for Information Display 2013 . Note that we are changing terminology ‘pseudo‐stereoanomaly’ in the previous studies to ‘pseudo‐stereoblindness’ in this paper to describe observers who pass stereovision clinical tests but who do not seem to use the stereo cues to make subjective depth judgments.…”