Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: The human visual system is tasked with recovering the different physical sources of optical structure that generate our retinal images. Separate research has focused on understanding how the visual system estimates (a) environmental sources of image structure and (b) blur induced by the eye's limited focal range, but little is known about how the visual system distinguishes environmental sources from optical defocus. Here, we present evidence that this is a fundamental perceptual problem and provide insights into how and when the visual system succeeds and fails in solving it. We show that fully focused surface shading can be misperceived as defocused and that optical blur can be misattributed to the material properties and shape of surfaces. We further reveal how these misperceptions depend on the relationship between shading gradients and sharp contours, and conclude that computations of blur are inherently linked to computations of surface shape, material, and illumination.
Source: eLife
DOI: 10.7554/elife.48214
Institutions: The University of Sydney, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,500
Funder: Caring for our Country
OpenAlex ID: W2957205891