van der Willigen Robert F, Harmening Wolf M, Vossen Sabine, Wagner Hermann
Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
J Vis. 2010 Jan 20;10(1):10.1-11. doi: 10.1167/10.1.10.
The perception of shape-from-stereo is best characterized by the spatial disparity-contrast sensitivity function (DSF). This is the stereo analogue of the well-known luminance-contrast sensitivity function (CSF). In principle, the DSF and CSF portray a visual system's ability to detect spatial modulation as specified by changes in binocular disparity and luminance, respectively. In humans, less fine detail is visible in the stereo domain than is possible in the luminance domain. Here, we characterize for the first time the DSF in a non-human species, viz. the barn owl. At the same time, we re-examined the human DSF with identical apparatus and methods to directly compare between two vertebrate species that evolved stereovision independently. We discovered a close relationship between the owl and human ability to detect shape-from-stereo. In particular, the shift in absolute position between the human and owl DSF, as measured here, closely corresponds to the shift in absolute position between their respective CSFs, as known from the literature. In conclusion, our study establishes unprecedented experimental proof of a striking similarity in the prowess of humans and owls to achieve shape-from-stereo.
立体视觉形状感知的最佳特征由空间视差-对比度敏感度函数（DSF）来描述。这是著名的亮度对比度敏感度函数（CSF）的立体视觉类似物。原则上，DSF和CSF分别描绘了视觉系统检测由双眼视差和亮度变化所指定的空间调制的能力。在人类中，立体视觉领域中可见的精细细节比亮度领域中可能看到的要少。在这里，我们首次对一种非人类物种——仓鸮的DSF进行了特征描述。同时，我们使用相同的设备和方法重新审视了人类的DSF，以便直接比较两个独立进化出立体视觉的脊椎动物物种。我们发现仓鸮和人类在立体视觉形状感知能力之间存在密切关系。特别是，此处测量的人类和仓鸮DSF绝对位置的偏移，与文献中已知的它们各自CSF绝对位置的偏移密切对应。总之，我们的研究以前所未有的实验证明了人类和仓鸮在实现立体视觉形状感知能力方面存在惊人的相似性。
