3D volumetric object perception in binocular vision

3D object perception is one of the important issues in the study of human visual functions. It is a seemingly effortless process that requires no conscious thought for the human beings, but a difficult computational problem for machines. The object perception with binocular viewing utilizes the disparities between the two eyes to recover the 3D information of an object, and takes advantage of the fact that human beings have two eyes. Recently, a new visual effect named the mime effect was found, in which an illusory 3D volumetric object is perceived due to some stereoscopically displayed inducing objects (Zhang et al., 1998). Here we propose a processing model with both top-down and bottom-up processes, and discuss the involvement of the early and higher-level visual cortical areas to this 3D volumetric object perception. It is hoped to provide new clues to the understanding of the human 3D visual system.