Measurement of Individual Changes in the Performance of Human Stereoscopic Vision for Disparities at the Limits of the Zone of Comfortable Viewing

3D displays enable immersive visual impressions but the impact on the human perception still is not fully understood. Viewing conditions like the convergence-accommodation (C-A) conflict have an unnatural influence on the visual system and might even lead to visual discomfort. As visual perception is individual we assumed the impact of simulated 3D content on the visual system to be as well. In this study we aimed to analyze the stereoscopic visual performance of 17 subjects for disparities inside and outside the in literature defined zone of comfortable viewing to provide an individual evaluation of the impact of increased disparities on the performance of the visual system. Stereoscopic stimuli were presented in a four-alternative forced choice (4AFC) setup in different disparities. The response times as well as the correct decision rates indicated the performance of stereoscopic vision. The results showed that increased disparities lead to a decline in performance. Further, the impact of the presented disparities is dependent on the difficulty of the task. The decline of performance as well as the deciding disparities for the decline were subject dependent.