Perception of Depth

The process of viewing the world in three dimensions is called distance or depth
perception. Depth perception is critical in our day to day life for making many simple
judgements like distance of an approaching vehicle while driving or walking etc. it is
often used by painters and artists to give depth to their works.

Perception of depth was a puzzle for scientists for several decades. They could not
understand how a two-dimensional retina could give us the extra perception of depth.

Perception of depth can be made using two sets of information, called cues:

(1) Monocular cues of depth perception.

(2) Binocular cues of depth perception.

We would discuss these cues in brief.

1. Monocular Cues of Depth Perception:

By monocular cues we mean, information that can be received about depth-perception
even if only one eye is seeing. Most artists and painters are aware of such cues and
often make use of them to produce three-dimensional effects in their painting. These
are also called psychological cues or pictorial cues.

The following are some of the important monocular cues:

(i) Relative Size:

The size of retinal image allows us to judge distance based on our past and present
experience with similar objects. The retinal image becomes smaller If the object moves
away and vice versa. Thus, we tend to perceive an object farther away when it appears
small and closer when it appears big.

(ii) Linear Perspective:

Objects which are far away throw a relatively smaller image on the retina compared to
those which are nearer. The best example of linear perspective is that of railroad track;
we feel as if the two parallel tracks are almost merging with each other at some
distance.
The reason is that the image cast by the distance between the tracks becomes smaller
and smaller in angle or visual angle. This supplies us with one of the most important
cues for depth perception.

(iii) Ariel Perspective:

The nearer the object, the clearer it is, the further away the object, the more blurred or
unclear it is, e.g., when we look at a landscape, the distant mountains and rivers look
hazy and blurred, while the nearer objects look clearer. Any impression of clarity or
haziness can serve as an important cue to know whether an object is near or further
away from us.

This phenomenon happens mainly due to scattering of light because of presence of

microscopic particles of dust and moisture in the air.

(iv) Interposition:
This is another monocular cue which occurs when one object obstructs our view of
another object. When one object is completely visible while another is partly covered by
it, the first object is perceived as being nearer and the overlapped object is considered
farther away.

(v) Light and shade:

The pattern of shadows and light is another very important cue in depth perception.
Other things being equal, shadowed objects are usually judged to be further away than
lighted objects.

This is true of dark colours at a great distance. Knowledge of the source of light and its
direction may serve as a cue in depth perception. E.g. if a light is coming from behind or
any side of an observer, the shadows formed, may give some cue of depth.

(vi) Texture Gradient:

A gradient may be defined as a graded or continuous change which is not abrupt or
sudden. The gradient of texture of a visual field may often, though not always, furnish us
with a cue for depth, because the object which are nearer to the observer have a coarse
texture, which may actually become smoother and smoother as the distance between
the object and the observer increases.
For instance, if one is looking upward at a brick building, the texture of the upper part
would appear lobe finer because of the distance from the eye, that is, the bricks look
lightly packed, hence denser than those at the eye level.

(vii) Motion Parallax:

Motion parallax refers to the fact that objects moving at a constant speed across the
frame will appear to move a greater amount if they are closer to the observer than they
would if they were at a greater distance.

It could be either monocular parallax or binocular parallax. The monocular parallax

refers to the change caused by the movement of only one eye. If you close one of your
eyes and move your head, you perceive slightly different view of the scene, which may
give some indication of depth.

In monocular parallax, the objects nearer to an observer moves faster and in the
opposite direction as compared to those which are at some distance from him. In
binocular parallax also the same thing happens, but the nearer objects don’t move as
fast as they do in monocular parallax. Such information is often useful in judging
distance objects.

e.g. when we travel in a bus, closer objects move against the direction of the bus,
whereas the farther objects move with the direction of the bus.

(viii) Relative Height:

Larger objects are perceived as being closer to the viewer and smaller ojects as being
father away. When we expect two objects to be the same size and they are not, the
larger of the two will appear closer and the smaller will appear farther away.

This phenomenon can be seen when looking at a landscape and seeing that distant
objects - trees, rocks, animals, etc. - that are at a distance appear to be smaller and
higher than similar objects that are close up.

(x) Distance from the horizon:

If other monocular cues are missing, the distance from the horizon can tell you how
close or far away the objects are. The objects which are close to the horizon are further
away than the objects which are far from the horizon.
(xi) Kinetic depth effect

If a stationary rigid figure (for example, a wire cube) is placed in front of a point source
of light so that its shadow falls on a translucent screen, an observer on the other side of
the screen will see a two-dimensional pattern of lines. But if the cube rotates, the visual
system will extract the necessary information for perception of the third dimension from
the movements of the lines, and a cube is seen. This is an example of the kinetic depth
effect.

(xii) Familiar size

Since the visual angle of an object projected onto the retina decreases with distance,
this information can be combined with previous knowledge of the object's size to
determine the absolute depth of the object. For example, people are generally familiar
with the size of an average automobile. This prior knowledge can be combined with
information about the angle it subtends on the retina to determine the absolute depth of
an automobile in a scene.

(xiii) Defocus blur

Selective image blurring is very commonly used in photographic and video for
establishing the impression of depth. This can act as a monocular cue even when all
other cues are removed. It may contribute to the depth perception in natural retinal
images, because the depth of focus of the human eye is limited. In addition, there are
several depth estimation algorithms based on defocus and blurring. Some jumping
spiders are known to use image defocus to judge depth.

2. Binocular Cues of Depth Perception:

When both the eyes are being used in the perception of an object or distance it is called
binocular perception. Experimental studies carried out in a wide variety of setting have
demonstrated that binocular cues of depth perception lead to more accurate vision than
the monocular cues of depth perception. The most important binocular cues of depth
perception are as under:

(i) Retinal disparity:

The two eyes are located a little away from each other. Therefore, each eye gets a little
different picture of the same object. The left eye can see a little more of the left side of
the object than the right eye. This difference in view is called retinal disparity. In other
words, retinal disparity is the difference in the images falling on the retinas of the two
eyes. Each eye gets a little different view of the object. When the two views are
compounded to form a single scene, the overlap between the two views gives us the
sensation of depth.

(b) Convergence:
When we are looking at an object which is close to us, the eyes converge or move more
toward each other. When the object is more than 20 meters away, the lines of the sight
of the two eyes are almost parallel.

The greater the convergence, the greater the tension in the muscles of the eyes. The
sensory impulses from the muscles of the eyes going to the brain give us a cue to
depth. The degree of convergence decreases with increase in distance of the objet.

We can experience convergence by holding a finger in front of our nose and slowly
bringing it closer. The more eyes turn inward or converge, the nearer the object appears
in the space.

(ix) Accommodation:

The shape of the lens of the eye changes in order to produce a sharp image on the
retina. For near objects the lens bulges, for far objects it flattens. This is called
accommodation. The process happened by which we focus the image on the retina with
the help of ciliary muscle. These muscles change the thickness of the lens of the eye.

If the object is moved more than 2 meters away, the muscle is relaxed. As the object
moves nearer, the muscle contracts and the lens thickness increase. The signal about
the degree of contraction of the muscle is sent to the brain, which provides the cue to
the brain.

Depth perception makes it possible for your eyes to determine distances between objects
and to tell if something is near to you or far away and above clues are critical tools to achieve
the depth perception.