Abstract:

PURPOSE: Binocular rivalry occurs when dichoptic images presented to the two eyes are too dissimilar to be fused. Research of Wolfe & Franzel, (1988) describes a series of binocular visual search experiments, in which they claim that luster is e?cient for visual search while spacing is not. Does spacing stay ine?cient when interference factors increase?
METHODS: A verification experiment is implemented with a polarized 3D display presenting the stimulus and an SMI eye-tracker recording the eyes’ fixation trace. Three groups of luminance of (100 250), (125 200) and (150 225) are designed to present lustrous and matte with the background of 175. Stimuli size is 1.5° and set size is held constant at 2 while the spacing of items varies from 1 to 7. On target trials, one item is lustrous and the other is matte. On distractor trials, both are matte. Subjects are asked to observe whether luster appears and make a judgement. Each subject is tested with 1500 trials.
RESULTS: The average reaction time of target trials (0.612s) is obviously less than that of distractor trials (0.649s). For target trials, average RTs of spacing varies from 1 to 7 are 0.605s, 0.617s, 0.613s, 0.623s, 0.616s, 0.599s, 0.611s. For distractor trials, average RTs are 0.642s, 0.654s, 0.661s, 0.646s, 0.652s, 0.619s, 0.667s. Fixation trace of target trials show that subjects observe items from one to the other while subjects observe in the direction of items in distractor trials. 
CONCLUSIONS: The design of three groups of luminance reduces the in?uence that white and black colors impose on the judgements of target. The results suggest that there is no obvious effect of spacing and spacing does not seem to be a major in?uence of this experiment. For this luster based visual search experiment, space is not e?cient.

Key words: Binocular rivalry, luster, space