Effect of decorrelation on 3-D grating detection with static and dynamic random-dot stereograms

Three experiments examined the effects of image decorrelation on the stereoscopic detection of sinusoidal depth gratings in static and dynamic random-dot stereograms (RDS). Detection was found to tolerate greater levels of image decorrelation as: (i) density increased from 23 to 676 dots/deg2; (ii) spatial frequency decreased from 0.88 to 0.22 cpd; (iii) amplitude increased above 0.5 arcmin; and (iv) dot lifetime decreased from 1.6 s (static RDS) to 80 ms (dynamic RDS). In each case, the specific pattern of tolerance to decorrelation could be explained by its consequences for image sampling, filtering, and the influence of depth noise.