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Interaction of contour geometry and optic flow in determining relative depth of surfaces

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Abstract

Dynamic occlusion, such as the accretion and deletion of texture near a boundary, is a major factor in determining relative depth of surfaces. However, the shape of the contour bounding the dynamic texture can significantly influence what kind of 3D shape, and what relative depth, are conveyed by the optic flow. This can lead to percepts that are inconsistent with traditional accounts of shape and depth from motion, where accreting/deleting texture can indicate the figural region, and/or 3D rotation can be perceived despite the constant speed of the optic flow. This suggests that the speed profile of the dynamic texture and the shape of its bounding contours combine to determine relative depth in a way that is not explained by existing models. Here, we investigated how traditional structure-from-motion principles and contour geometry interact to determine the relative-depth interpretation of dynamic textures. We manipulated the consistency of the dynamic texture with rotational or translational motion by varying the speed profile of the texture. In Experiment 1, we used a multi-region figure-ground display consisting of regions with dots moving horizontally in opposite directions in adjacent regions. In Experiment 2, we used stimuli including two regions separated by a common border, with dot textures moving horizontally in opposite directions. Both contour geometry (convexity) and the speed profile of the dynamic dot texture influenced relative-depth judgments, but contour geometry was the stronger factor. The results underscore the importance of contour geometry, which most current models disregard, in determining depth from motion.

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Open Practices Statement

The data from the experiments reported in this paper, the data analysis scripts, and demo videos of example stimuli can be found at the Open Science Framework database: https://osf.io/qeygm/.

Notes

  1. Consistent with the figure/ground literature, by the “convex" side of a figure/ground display we will mean the side containing convex parts (or nearly convex parts). In the context of this experiment, we manipulated the degree of convexity by varying the strength of part boundaries at negative minima of curvature (also referred as part salience by Hoffman and Singh (1997).)

  2. Even though we did not ask the subjects to judge the 3D shape of the perceived surfaces, we have previously shown that when similar multi-region figure/ground displays were used subjects’ relative-depth judgments were strongly correlated with their 3D surface estimations. The regions that were perceived in front were also perceived as surfaces undergoing rotational motion in depth. In the same way, regions that were judged as belonging to the background were also perceived as translating flat surfaces Tanrikulu et al. (2016).

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by NIH EY021494 (MS, JF) and NSF DGE 0549115 (IGERT: Interdisciplinary Training in Perceptual Science).

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA

    Ö. Dağlar Tanrıkulu

  2. Department of Psychology, Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, USA

    Vicky Froyen, Jacob Feldman & Manish Singh

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  1. Ö. Dağlar Tanrıkulu
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Tanrıkulu, Ö.D., Froyen, V., Feldman, J. et al. Interaction of contour geometry and optic flow in determining relative depth of surfaces. Atten Percept Psychophys 86, 221–236 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-023-02807-0

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