P3D Eidetikers

[shab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Bob Weir writes:


"As I'm currently running thru boxes of stuff as a result of my move

to Montana, I ran across kind of an interesting article from the
November,

1970 Psychology Today magazine...

..

..

..

Pretty remarkable, eh? I was also surprised because I didn't think

that SIRDS were really well known before the mid 80's or so."


The following is an excerpt from the jacket of the seminal book
Foundations of Cyclopean Perception by Bela Julesz published in 1971,
which made random dot stereograms a popular term.



>>>>

<excerpt>Foundations of Cyclopean Perception by Bela Julesz


When the reader examines one of the colored anaglyphs, such as the
circular one printed on the jacket, he will perceive a random pattern
composed of thousands of dots. Examining the same anaglyph with the
special glasses included in this volume, however, will produce an
extraordinary visual experience. Within seconds, the reader will observe
complex three-dimensional surfaces forming among the dots.


What has been happening? The anaglyph is a special display that has cast
a predetermined image on the viewer's "cyclopean eye" or cyclopean
retina, a site in the visual cortex containing binocularly sensitive
cells that correlate the monocular patterns from the left and right eyes
to produce depth perception.


The anaglyphs presented here belong to a unique class of
computer-generated visual stimuli, the random-dot correlogram, which was
first produced by Bela Julesz in 1959 and has since become a paradigm for
research in vision and perception. Containing no monocular patterns, the
correlogram cues the cyclopean retina alone, and skips operationally the
anatomical retinae.


"Here there is a sharp, determinate, distinctive perception of form that
must originate somewhere in the visual nervous system beyond the retinae
of the eyes. As psychologists, then, we have to a certain extent managed
to look into the 'black box' of the visual system: we have found out
something about where a particular perceptual process takes place. This
is a procedure that is seldom employed in the traditional experimental
psychology of perception," Julesz writes.


</excerpt><<<<<<<<


The book, as many of you know, has beautiful examples of RDS, the
precursor and the inspiration to SIRDS.



Shab Levy

Portland, OR USA



------------------------------