This paper investigates the influence of depth of field on change detection in both pictorial and solid scenes. In this work, a within-subjects experiment is conducted using a flicker paradigm, with which the hit rate and response time for change detection are obtained. The results show that depth of field has effects on change detection: the hit rate is smaller and response time is longer in the scene with small depth of field than in the scene with large depth of field or uniform blur. It is concluded that when depth of field is small and binocular disparity is not zero in a picture, the influence of depth of field on change detection is more significant than binocular disparity. This conclusion leads to the result that the change in the sharp area is detected easier and faster than in the area that is closer to the observer.

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Depth of Field is roughly defined as the depth range that is perceived to be sharp in the photograph. Although earlier research has shown effects of depth of field in simple scenes, it is unclear what the effect of depth of field is in semi-natural scenes in which there is a redundancy of depth cues. I made four different semi-natural scenes consisting of a central and two flanking figurines. For each scene, I made a series of photos in which the depth between the central the flanking figurines was increasing in small steps. I made these photo series with six different Depths of Field. In the first experiment participants had to adjust the position in depth of the two flanking figurines relative to a central figurine, by toggling through the photos, such that the perceived depth equaled the perceived lateral distance between the two flanking figurines. Viewing was either monocular or bi-ocular (non-stereo). In the second experiment, I varied the viewing distance. I found that participants' depth / width settings increased with increasing Depth of Field. In other words, when the Depth of Field increased, the perceived depth decreased. Participants made lower settings for monocularly seen stimuli than for bi-ocularly seen stimuli and decreased when the viewing distance was increased. The effect sizes of viewing mode and viewing distance were in the same order as the effect size of the Depth of Field over the experimental range. I conclude that in photographs of (semi-) natural scenes, in which depth cues within the image are highly redundant, and where there are plenty of conflicting depth cues as well, depth of field is an important cue that is taken into account in the perception of depth.@en