Virtual Reality Technology for the Visual Perception Study

Visual illusions have provided researchers with important insights into the rules of how the visual system interprets environmental information. In current models of lightness perception it has been suggested that 2D visual cues in a scene play a crucial role in lightness estimations. The role of depth cues was investigated in some studies, but the results were contradictory. Lately, the virtual reality (VR) techniques were applied successfully to investigate 3D visual perception. Using the CAVE system, we studied the strength of 3D visual illusions. We investigated the role of 3D articulated backgrounds in the perception of the simultaneous lightness contrast (SLC) illusion. The results showed that the illusion strength decreased for all 3D displays relative to the 2D articulated version. There were no significant differences between different types of 3D displays.