Effects of stimulus color, background color, and predicted depth in depth perception

Abstract

There is a growing interest in government and industry for the development of visual displays that represent the depth of objects stereoscopically - that is, by presenting the two eyes`` views with retinal disparity. Stereoscopic displays produce an enhanced perception of relative depth among objects that can improve the perceptual discrimination of figure and enhanced reality. This study investigated the effects of several factors - stimulus color, background color, and predicted depth - that affect depth perception in stereoscopic displays. For this study two experiments were conducted ; in the first experiment, the subjects were asked to indicate the depth perceived from presented image(rectangle) using matching mark, and in the second experiment, the subjects were asked to adjust one image(controllable rectangle) to have the same perceived depth as the other image(fixed rectangle) using keyboard. The depth perceived under various combination of levels of these factors was compared with depth predicted by the geometry of streopsis. Through two experiments, we found that stimulus color, predicted depth, and interaction between stimulus color and background color affected perceived depth significantly, and that red was perceived to be closest to the observer followed by yellow, green, and then blue.