This specialized viewing instrument uses a set of prisms or mirrors to feed the right eye's perspective to the left eye and vice versa. By inverting the normal binocular disparity, it forces the brain to interpret convex objects as concave hollows and background objects as foreground elements. It is primarily used in vision research and psychophysics to study stereopsis and how the human visual system resolves conflicting depth cues.
The subjects looking through the pseudoscope consistently reported that the spherical target appeared as a recessed bowl.
Related terms
Pseudoscopy
A visual illusion where normal depth perception is inverted so that near objects appear far away.
Orthostereoscopy
The capture and display of three-dimensional images without spatial or depth distortion.
Virtual image
An optical representation formed by diverging light rays that cannot be projected onto a screen.