Re: weighting depth cues - monocular blur

[T3D Richard Young <young@xxxxxxx>]

Gerald Westheimer (posted by T3D Richard Young in TECH-3D Digest 183):
>>There was an article the other day in the newspaper about a pilot who had an
>>accident and it was revealed that, contrary to regulations, he was wearing
>>some kind of contact lens correction... This seriously impairs
>>stereopsis (Suzanne McKee and I wrote a paper on that in JOSA about 1980).

T3D Jim Crowell's reply (in TECH-3D Digest 183):
>Sure, but that's not all it would disrupt...I'll have to look at that
>paper, I find it very hard to believe that stereo is important for
>flying...

Gerald Westheimer's reply to Jim:
"Westheimer G, McKee SP  (1980) Stereoscopic acuity with defocused and
spatially filtered retinal images.  Journal of the Optical Society of
America 70:772-778. Fig. 2 shows impairment of stereoacuity with spectacle
blur, Table 1 compares uniocular and binocular blurs.  A 2.5 diopter
monocular blur gives about twice the stereoacuity deficit of an equivalent
binocular blur."

My guess: pilots under good flying conditions can fly ok with no
stereopsis, but in stressed conditions in which correct spatial perception
is critical (crash landing, landing under poor visibility, another plane in
the flight path) the extra cues provided by stereopsis would provide a
quicker reaction time and a better decision about flight path. Does anyone
on this list have a contact at the Wright-Patterson airbase psychology
research labs? I am sure this question must have been investigated
thoroughly...

- posted by T3D Dick Young





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