Abstract
A closed contour was considered as a perceptual bridge from 1D contour to 2D shape (Elder, 2015). Those closed contours can be easier detected (Zhang et al., 2009; Gerhardstein et al., 2012) and discriminated (Elder and Zucker, 1993, 1994) than non-closed (open) contours. The continuity of such contours could be disrupted by depth information (Nakayama, 1996). However, it's still unknown whether this discontinuity of contours in 3D will then disrupt the closure grouping effects. In another word, it's unknown whether a retinal closed but 3D open contour is still easier to be detected and discriminated. Two experiments were reported here to test the effect of stereoscopic information on closure grouping. In the first experiment, random-dots stereograms were used to test the detection on closed and open figures. Each figure was presented either in only one depth plane, or with upper part in one depth plane and lower part in another depth plane. Results showed the detection on closed figures was easier, even when the figures were presented with segmentations in two depth planes. In the second experiment, visual search task was used to test the ability in discriminating among closed or open figures. Each figure was also presented in only one depth plane or with segmentations in two depth planes. Results showed searching among closed figures were slowed down when each figure was presented with segmentations in two depth planes. Such effect was not observed in searching among open figures. These two experiments showed that the stereoscopic information disrupted closure grouping in discrimination task but not in detection task. It indicated that the stereoscopic interpretation involves in the perceptual organization not at the very beginning, but before the fully understanding of the 2D information.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016