You are here

Separating shading into shape, material and illumination

Much of our understanding of the cortical circuits responsible for 3D shape perception has been driven by parametric manipulations of very simple disparity-defined stimuli (e.g. flat or slanted planes depicted in random dot stereograms). This work points to a key role for higher-dorsal circuits in processing 3D shape information. However, it is possible that planar stimuli stimulate ventral areas sub-optimally, meaning that previous work has underestimated the contributions of intermediate ventral circuits. Here we aim to study more ‘shape-like’ stimuli to test the contributions of the ventral processing stream. We aim to identify the cortical circuits that process 3D shape information for more complex disparity-defined structures (curved and undulating objects) in addition to considering the brain’s use of ‘pictorial’ depth cues such as shading and shadow.  

Researcher
Early Stage Researcher
University of Cambridge
Project supervisors
Principal Investigator
University of Cambridge
Host Institute