The Stereoscope by David Brewster — Read

In a preceding chapter I have explained a remarkable fallacy of sight which takes place in the stereoscope when we interchange the binocular pictures, that is, when we place the right-eye picture on the left side, and the left-eye picture on the right side. The objects in the foreground of the picture are thus thrown into the background, and, _vice versa_, the same effect, as we have seen, takes place when we unite the binocular pictures, in their usual position, by the ocular stereoscope, that is, by converging the optic axes to a point between the eye and the pictures. In both these cases the objects are only the plane representations of solid bodies, and the change which is produced by their union is not in their form but in their position. In certain cases, however, when the object is of some magnitude in the picture, the form is also changed in consequence of the inverse position of its parts. That is, the drawings of objects that are naturally convex will appear concave, and those which are naturally concave will appear convex.

In these phenomena there is no mental illusion in their production. The two similar points in each picture, if they are nearer to one another than other two similar points, must, in conformity with the laws of vision, appear nearer the eye when combined in the common stereoscope. When this change of place and form does not appear, as in the case of the human figure, previously explained, it is by a mental illusion that the law of vision is controlled.