Fleet, D.J., Wagner, H. and Heeger, D.J.
Neural encoding of binocular disparity:
Energy models, position shifts and phase shifts.
Vision Research 36(12) 1839-1857, 1996
ABSTRACT
Neurophysiological data supports two models for the disparity selectivity
of binocular simple and complex cells in primary visual cortex.
These involve binocular combinations of monocular receptive fields that are
shifted in retinal position (the position-shift model) or in phase (the
phase-shift model) between the two eyes. This article presents a formal
description and analysis of a binocular energy model with these forms of
disparity selectivity. We propose how one might measure the relative
contributions of phase- and position-shifts in simple and complex cells.
The analysis also reveals ambiguities in disparity encoding that are
inherent in these model neurons, suggesting a need for a second stage
of processing. We propose that linear pooling the binocular responses
across orientations and scales (spatial frequency) is capable of producing
an unambiguous representation of disparity.
Return to David Fleet's home page.