The effects of functional binocular disparity on route memory in stereoscopic images

In this study, the effects of functional binocular disparity on route memory were experimentally verified in the context of learning of evacuation routes in disaster prevention and mitigation training. Functional binocular disparity in 3D images using cognitive characteristics such as the perspective of a specific location correlated memory in this paper. Depth maps were manipulated with the objective of assisting memorization and intuitive understanding of evacuation routes. In particular, with respect to deciding the advancing direction of the evacuation route in buildings without explicit signs, for a specific building, depth maps that could work as guide marks for the advancing route direction were manipulated to augment functional binocular parallax. In the experimental stimuli, eight locations within the building were selected to form the evacuation route, and recording was conducted using a 3D camera. The four conditions simulated in the experiment were 3D conditions using 3D images, 2D conditions using only the left image of the 3D images, adding depth map manipulation and functional binocular disparity to 2D, and placing guide marks at locations in directions that are different from the actual advancing direction to create distracted 3D conditions. 32 participants were given the route recognition task two times, once immediately after the interference task and once more after an interval of one week. The results suggest that, the participants who observed the evacuation route images modified into functional binocular disparity, remembered the correct path more easily after an interval of one week and were able to better focus their eye-gaze onto the parallax augmented locations.