Distance Estimation in a 3-D Imaging Display.

Imaging displays have lacked several characteristics of direct vision such as true stereopsis, and this may in part account for some loss in visual performance when compared with direct vision. One such decrement in performance is in judgments of distance. An experiment is reported in which judgments of distance of targets were obtained from videotaped images of targets in a natural outdoor scene. Presentations were made under 3 conditions: stereo with near or far zero disparities and binocular nonstereo ("biocular") viewing. Underconstancy was found to be less for stereo presentation, but only when the point of zero disparity was in the plane of presentation of the virtual image. Some implications for the design of cockpit imaging displays are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]