Abstract
Recently, Cass and Van der Burg demonstrated that temporal order judgment (TOJ) precision could be profoundly impaired by the mere presence of dynamic visual clutter elsewhere in the visual field. This study examines whether presenting target and distractor objects in different depth planes might ameliorate this remote temporal camouflage (RTC) effect. TOJ thresholds were measured under static and dynamic (flickering) distractor conditions. In Experiment 1, targets were presented at zero, crossed, or uncrossed disparity, with distractors fixed at zero disparity. Thresholds were significantly elevated under dynamic compared with static contextual conditions, replicating the RTC effect. Crossed but not uncrossed disparity targets improved performance in dynamic distractor contexts, which otherwise produce substantial RTC. In Experiment 2, the assignment of disparity was reversed: targets fixed at zero disparity; distractors crossed, uncrossed, or zero. Under these conditions, thresholds improved significantly in the nonzero distractor disparity conditions. These results indicate that presenting target and distractor objects in different planes can significantly improve TOJ performance in dynamic conditions. In Experiment 3, targets were each presented with a different sign of disparity (e.g., one crossed and the other uncrossed), with no resulting performance benefits. Results suggest that disparity can be used to alleviate the performance-diminishing effects of RTC, but only if both targets constitute a single and unique disparity-defined surface.
Highlights
One of the primary functions of stereopsis is to facilitate object segmentation, in cluttered visual environments (Nakayama & Silverman, 1986)
Cass and Van der Burg (2014) reported a new contextual phenomenon in which visual timing performance is profoundly disrupted when the target objects were surrounded by irrelevant luminance modulating objects elsewhere in the visual field compared with when these irrelevant objects were static
A 3 Â 2 repeated measures factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare Just noticeable differences (JNDs) derived under static distractor conditions to those measured in dynamic distractor conditions across the three target disparity conditions
Summary
One of the primary functions of stereopsis is to facilitate object segmentation, in cluttered visual environments (Nakayama & Silverman, 1986). Cass and Van der Burg (2014) reported a new contextual phenomenon in which visual timing performance (temporal order judgment [TOJ] thresholds) is profoundly disrupted when the target objects were surrounded by irrelevant luminance modulating objects elsewhere in the visual field compared with when these irrelevant objects were static (i.e., not modulating) This phenomenon, known as remote temporal camouflage (RTC) differs in several key respects to other previously reported contextual phenomena, such as crowding, surround suppression, and motion-induced blindness (Bonneh, Cooperman, & Sagi, 2001; Pelli, & Tillman, 2008; Petrov et al, 2005; Petrov & McKee, 2006; Wallis, & Arnold, 2009). The presence of dynamic distractors introduces irrelevant motion signals to this direction decision, thereby masking the target-relevant motion signal
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