Abstract

Observers detected and/or identified the spatial frequencies of grating stimuli. Spatial frequency varied from 3.8 to 5.5 cycles per degree, and contrast varied from 0.001 to 0.33. In nearly all cases, the psychometric functions that relate performance on the different tasks to contrast are multiples of one underlying function, provided that the functions are expressed in standard normal deviates. The underlying function is positively accelerated at contrasts less than 0.01 and levels off at contrasts greater than 0.05. A vector model interprets the results and relates them to the responses of individual spatially tuned mechanisms.

© 1983 Optical Society of America

Effects of high-contrast peripheral patterns on the detection threshold of sinusoidal targets

Yoshimichi Ejima and Shigeko Takahashi
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(12) 1695-1700 (1983)

Spatial-frequency discrimination and detection: comparison of postadaptation thresholds

D. Regan and K. I. Beverley
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(12) 1684-1690 (1983)

Invariance of the slope of the psychometric function with spatial summation

Melanie J. Mayer and Christopher W. Tyler
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(8) 1166-1172 (1986)

Effect of eccentricity on the relationship between detection and identification

James P. Thomas
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4(8) 1599-1605 (1987)

Simultaneous masking interactions between chromatic and luminance gratings

Karen K. De Valois and Eugene Switkes
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(1) 11-18 (1983)