Work

Visual Perception of Thick Transparent Materials

Year: 2011

Type: article

Abstract: Under typical viewing conditions, human observers readily distinguish between materials such as silk, marmalade, or granite, an achievement of the visual system that is poorly understood. Recognizing transparent materials is especially challenging. Previous work on the perception of transparency has focused on objects composed of flat, infinitely thin filters. In the experiments reported here, we considered thick transparent objects, such as ice cubes, which are irregular in shape and can vary in refractive index. An important part of the visual evidence signaling the presence of such objects is distortions in the perceived shape of other objects in the scene. We propose a new class of visual cues derived from the distortion field induced by thick transparent objects, and we provide experimental evidence that cues arising from the distortion field predict both the successes and the failures of human perception in judging refractive indices.

Source: Psychological Science

DOI: 10.1177/0956797611408734

Authors: Roland W. Fleming, Frank Jäkel, Laurence T. Maloney

Institutions: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Osnabrück University, New York University

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,900

Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft