The visual perception of 3D shape

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.006

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volume 8, Issue 3, March 2004, Pages 115-121

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.006 Get rights and content

Abstract

A fundamental problem for the visual perception of 3D shape is that patterns of optical stimulation are inherently ambiguous. Recent mathematical analyses have shown, however, that these ambiguities can be highly constrained, so that many aspects of 3D structure are uniquely specified even though others might be underdetermined. Empirical results with human observers reveal a similar pattern of performance. Judgments about 3D shape are often systematically distorted relative to the actual structure of an observed scene, but these distortions are typically constrained to a limited class of transformations. These findings suggest that the perceptual representation of 3D shape involves a relatively abstract data structure that is based primarily on qualitative properties that can be reliably determined from visual information.

Section snippets

Sources of information about 3D shape

There are many different aspects of optical stimulation that are known to provide perceptually salient information about 3D shape. Several of these properties are exemplified in Figure 1. They include variations of image intensity or shading, gradients of optical texture from patterns of polka dots or surface contours, and line drawings that depict the edges and vertices of objects. Other sources of visual information are defined by systematic transformations among multiple images, including

Psychophysical investigations of 3D shape perception

The earliest psychophysical experiments on perceived 3D shape were performed in the 19th century to investigate stereoscopic vision, although the stimuli used were generally restricted to small points of light presented in otherwise total darkness. These studies revealed that observers' perceptions can be systematically distorted, such that physically straight lines in the environment can appear perceptually to be curved, and apparent intervals in depth become systematically compressed with

The perceptual representation of 3D shape

Almost all existing theoretical models for computing the 3D structures of arbitrary surfaces from visual information are designed to generate a particular form of data structure that can be referred to generically as a ‘local property map’. The basic idea is quite simple and powerful. A visual scene is broken up into a matrix of small local neighborhoods, each of which is characterized by a number (or a set of numbers) to represent some particular local aspect of 3D structure, such as depth or

The neural processing of 3D shape

Although most of our current knowledge about the perception of 3D shape has come from computational analyses and psychophysical investigations, there has been a growing effort in recent years to identify the neural mechanisms that are involved in the processing of 3D shape. The first sources of evidence relating to this topic were obtained from lesion studies in monkeys 35, 36. The results revealed that animals with bilateral ablations of the inferior temporal cortex are severely impaired in

Conclusion

Psychophysical investigations have revealed that observers' judgments about 3D shape are often systematically distorted, but that these distortions are constrained to a limited set of transformations in a manner that is consistent with current computational analyses. These findings suggest that the perceptual representation of 3D shape is likely to be primarily based on qualitative aspects of 3D structure that can be determined reliably from visual information. One possible form of data

Acknowledgements

The preparation of this manuscript was supported by grants from NIH (R01-Ey12432) and NSF (BCS-0079277).

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Trends in Cognitive Sciences

The visual perception of 3D shape

Abstract

Section snippets

Sources of information about 3D shape

Psychophysical investigations of 3D shape perception

The perceptual representation of 3D shape

The neural processing of 3D shape

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Cognition

Neuron

Neuroimage

Neuron

Neuropsychologia

Vision Res.

The Perception of the Visual World

Computing local surface orientation and shape from texture for curved surfaces

Int. J. Comput. Vis.

A contour propagation approach to surface filling-in and volume formation

Psychol. Rev.

The bas-relief ambiguity

Int. J. Comput. Vis.

Affine structure from motion

J. Opt. Soc. Am. A

The Interpretation of Visual Motion

A computer algorithm for reconstructing a scene from two projections

Nature

Structure from stereo and motion

J. Opt. Soc. Am. A