Sensitivity for vertical retinal image differences.

Abstract

The detection of horizontal disparities between the right and left retinal images is accepted as an important component in the visual perception of depth. It has occasionally been pointed out that a disparity will also occur in the vertical when a target is nearer to one eye than the other and could be used as a second component. Here it is shown that while it is possible to detect size differences between the retinal images in the vertical direction, the sensitivity is at least one order of magnitude less than the horizontal differences. It had been generally accepted that vertical disparities cannot be detected (literature summarized by Tschermak), but there are clear reports of the ability of subjects to respond to relative differences in the vertical magnification of the images of the two eyes, the so-called induced size effect. It manifests itself in the appearance of a visual scene as if there had been an opposite horizontal magnification and is, therefore, in the correct direction if it is to be utilized in asymmetrical convergence.