Effects of fuzziness in perception of stereoscopically presented virtual object location

This paper describes our studies on perception of virtual object locations. We explore the behavior of various factors related to depth perception, especially the interplay of fuzziness and binocular disparity. Experiments measure this interplay with the use of a three- dimensional display. Image fuzziness is ordinarily seen as an effect of the aerial perspective in two-dimensional displays for distant objects. We found that it can also be a source of depth representation also in three-dimensional display space. This effect occurs with large individual variations, and for subjects who have good stereopsis it does not significantly affect their depth perception. However, it can be a very strong depth cue for subjects who have weak stereopsis. A subsequent experiment measured the effects when both size and brightness of sharp stimuli are adjusted to a standard fuzzy stimulus. The results suggest that the fuzziness cue at short range is explained by other cues (i.e. the size cue and the brightness cue). This paper presents results of a series of such experiments.