Cyclopean image is a single mental image

Image

An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...

 of a scene created by the brain

Human brain

The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...

 by combining two images received from the two eye

Human eye

The human eye is an organ which reacts to light for several purposes. As a conscious sense organ, the eye allows vision. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth...

s. The mental process behind construction of the Cyclopean image is crucial to stereo vision

Stereopsis

Stereopsis refers to impression of depth that is perceived when a scene is viewed with both eyes by someone with normal binocular vision. Binocular viewing of a scene creates two slightly different images of the scene in the two eyes due the the eyes' different positions on the head...

. Autostereogram

Autostereogram

An autostereogram is a single-image stereogram , designed to create the visual illusion of a three-dimensional scene from a two-dimensional image in the human brain...

s take advantage of this process to trick the brain into forming an apparent Cyclopean image from seemingly random patterns.

Cyclopean image is named after the mythical Cyclops

Cyclops

A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...

with a single eye.