THE CYCLOPEAN (STEREOSCOPIC) BARBER POLE ILLUSION

Across two experiments, this study found that the barber pole illusion (i.e. grating pattern appearing to move in the direction of the long axis of a rectangular aperture) is perceived with stereoscopic (cyclop ean) motion. The grating and aperture comprising the barber pole displ ay were created from binocular disparity differences embedded in a dyn amic random-dot stereogram or from luminance differences. In Experimen t 1, observers viewed a square-wave grating moving through a rectangul ar aperture of 2:1 or 4:1 aspect ratio and indicated whether the grati ng appeared to move in a direction perpendicular to its orientation or in the direction of the long axis of the aperture. For both stereosco pic and luminance stimuli equally, the grating appeared to move in the direction of the aperture (i.e. the barber pole illusion) more often with the larger aspect ratio than with the smaller aspect ratio. The c ondition for which a stereoscopic grating moved through a luminance re ctangular aperture was also examined: the grating appeared to move in the direction of the aperture (inter-attribute barber pole illusion). In Experiment 2, observers viewed a square-wave grating moving through a rectangular aperture of 3:1 aspect ratio whose sides were indented in order to change the local direction of motion of the line terminato rs. For both stereoscopic and luminance stimuli, the grating appeared to move more frequently in a direction perpendicular to its orientatio n with the indented aperture (i.e. the illusion was diminished); Thus, local velocity signals from moving stereoscopic line terminators play a role in the production of the barber pole illusion similar to that of luminance motion signals. This suggests that the generation and pro pagation of motion signals at cyclopean levels of vision play a part i n the representation of coherently-moving rigid surfaces. (C) 1998 Els evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.