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ABSTRACT: Detection performance was measured with sinusoidal and pulse-train gratings. Although the 2.09-cycles-per-degree pulse-train, or line, grating contained at least eight harmonics all at equal contrast, it was no more detectable than its most detectable component. The addition of broadband pink noise designed to equalize the detectability of the components of the pulse train made the pulse train approximately a factor of 4 more detectable than any of its components. However, in contrast-discrimination experiments, with a pedestal or masking grating of the same form and phase as the signal and with 15% contrast, the noise did not affect the discrimination performance of the pulse train relative to that obtained with its sinusoidal components. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of early vision, in particular the implications for possible sources of internal noise.
Journal of the Optical Society of America A 08/2002; 19(7):1259-66. · 1.56 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The detectability of contrast increments was measured as a function of the contrast of a masking or "pedestal" grating at a number of different spatial frequencies ranging from 2 to 16 cycles per degree of visual angle. The pedestal grating always had the same orientation, spatial frequency, and phase as the signal. The shape of the contrast-increment threshold versus pedestal contrast (TvC) functions depends on the performance level used to define the "threshold," but when both axes are normalized by the contrast corresponding to 75% correct detection at each frequency, the TvC functions at a given performance level are identical. Confidence intervals on the slope of the rising part of the TvC functions are so wide that it is not possible with our data to reject Weber's law.
Journal of the Optical Society of America A 08/2002; 19(7):1267-73. · 1.56 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The forward and backward masking effect of a 20-micros pulse was measured for delays ranging from 0 to -/+4 ms. Masking is not a monotonic function of delay in either forward or backward masking. For two of the three observers, the asymmetry in which forward masking exceeds that of backward masking is small for delays less than 500 micros. The implications of the data for the contribution of masking to the precedence effect are considered.
Hearing Research 04/1999; 129(1-2):92-100. · 2.70 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The lateralization of clicks and their "echoes" was investigated with a view to determining the role of spectral characteristics in lateralization. Lateralization-discrimination performance was measured in a number of two-interval, two-alternative forced-choice experiments using three pairs of binaural clicks designed to elucidate how spectral cues are used in lateralization. The stimulus in one observation interval comprised a diotic click followed, after the interclick interval (ICI), by a dichotic click with either (1) an interaural time delay or (2) an interaural amplitude difference. The dichotic click was in turn followed, after an ICI of the same size, by another diotic click. In the second observation interval, the signals to the two ears were interchanged. The stimulus has the property that the signals delivered to the two ears had either (1) identical energy-density spectra but nonzero interaural-phase differences (IPDs) or (2) zero IPDs but nonidentical energy-density spectra. Under certain circumstances, observers perceived these stimuli as arising from the side of the head opposite that which would be predicted from the direction of the interaural cue in the temporal waveform. Joint consideration of the psychophysical data and the spectral characteristics of the stimuli strongly suggest a spectral "dominance region" for lateralization near 750 Hz, observers' lateralization performance was determined predominantly by the IPD cues from this region. In general, the results demonstrate that echoes of transients that arrive within about 2-3 ms of an initial transient are not suppressed, but have a substantial effect on lateralization through their contribution to the resultant spectral characteristics. The results contradict models that represent the precedence effect as the temporary suppression or inhibition of directional information in echoes over 2-3 ms after an initial transient.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 03/1999; 105(2 Pt 1):838-49. · 1.55 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The precedence effect in two-click stimuli was investigated by measuring observers' sensitivity to interaural time delays (ITDs) as a function of interclick interval (ICI). A two-interval two-alternative forced-choice discrimination paradigm was used in two stimulus configurations: type I, a dichotic click with a given ITD preceded a diotic click; and type II, a dichotic click followed a diotic click. Threshold ITDs were measured in each configuration for a finely sampled distribution of ICIs that ranged from 0.1 to 25.6 ms. Performance was characterized by the "threshold elevation factor" (TEF) which normalized each of the observers' type I and type II ITD thresholds relative to their ITD threshold for a single dichotic click. The finer sampling of ICIs revealed two novel results: First, for two observers, sensitivity to ITD in the later arriving ITD (type II) oscillated in a consistent and systematic way with changes in ICI. Second, when the ICI reached 12.8 ms, ITD thresholds in the type I and type II configurations were equal but nearly a factor of 2 greater than for a single dichotic click. Some aspects of the data are consistent with the phenomenon of binaural adaptation.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 12/1998; 104(5):3030-8. · 1.55 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The human contrast sensitivity function is bandpass in form for stimuli of low temporal frequency but low pass for flickering or moving stimuli. Because the loss in sensitivity to moving stimuli is large, images moving on the retina have little perceptible high-spatial-frequency content. The loss of high-spatial-frequency content--often referred to as motion blur--provides a potential cue to motion. The amount of motion blur is a function of stimulus velocity but is significant at velocities encountered by the visual system in everyday situations. Our experiments determined the influence of high-spatial-frequency losses induced by motion of this order on motion detection and on motion-based image segmentation. Motion detection and motion-based segmentation tasks were performed with either spectrally low-pass or spectrally broadband stimuli. Performance on these tasks was compared with a condition having no motion but in which form differences mimicked the perceptual loss of high spatial frequencies produced by motion. This allowed the relative salience of motion and motion-induced blur to be determined. Neither image segmentation nor motion detection was sensitive to the high-spatial-frequency content of the stimuli. Thus the change in perceptual form produced in moving stimuli is not normally used as a cue either for motion detection or for motion-based image segmentation in ordinary situations.
Journal of the Optical Society of America A 03/1998; 15(2):297-306. · 1.56 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The perceived speed, temporal frequency, and spatial frequency of matched colour and luminance gratings were compared in separate experiments. The large factor by which colour gratings are perceived to be slower moving than matched luminance gratings cannot be explained by systematic differences in the perceived spatial frequency or in the perceived temporal frequency of the two types of grating.
Vision Research 09/1994; 34(16):2093-101. · 2.41 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Analysis of motion may be accomplished using the spatiotemporal variations produced when a spatially varying luminance waveform moves across linear receptive fields. Moving contrast-modulated patterns which consist of coarse-scale spatial variations in the contrast of fine-scale luminance patterns cannot be analysed in this way. The human visual system can analyse the motion of contrast-modulated patterns and this suggests it may contain mechanisms that use non-linear transformations. Non-linear transformation of contrast-modulated patterns would give rise to a component (a distortion product) that varies on the same spatial scale as the contrast variation; this can be analysed to extract motion. Is the non-linearity simply an inherent part of the transduction process or is it a characteristic of a mechanism specialized for the analysis of the motion of such patterns? Comparisons of the spatial and temporal limitations of motion discrimination using luminance and contrast-modulated patterns suggest that the mechanisms which analyse the two types of patterns are different, although recent physiological evidence suggests that they may have common elements.
Ciba Foundation symposium 02/1994; 184:211-20; discussion 220-6, 269-71.
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Current Biology 12/1993; 3(11):800-3. · 9.65 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: At durations shorter than about 150 msec, a complex grating comprising a static 1-c/deg grating and a moving 3-c/deg grating is perceived as moving in the direction opposite that of the physical direction of motion. Here the phenomenon is further examined by measuring the perceived direction of motion of the fused images of a 1-c/deg grating presented to one eye and a moving 3-c/deg grating presented to the other. The strength of the illusion is almost unaffected by dichoptic presentation. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that perceived motion is a consequence of the way the visual system integrates signals arising from different detectors tuned to the two component gratings.
Vision Research 08/1993; 33(11):1491-4. · 2.41 Impact Factor
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G B Henning
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ABSTRACT: Under certain conditions, amplitude discrimination is not a monotonic increasing function of signal-to-noise ratio. The non-monotonicity arises when the tones to be discriminated are presented 180 degrees out-of-phase at the observer's ears and just above their detection 'threshold' in noise that is in-phase at the observer's ears, and with 2-6-dB differences in amplitude.
Hearing Research 11/1991; 55(2):188-94. · 2.70 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The loudness of four monaurally presented Gaussian shaped, 60-ms tone bursts was matched to that of four similar pulses presented binaurally. The stimuli to be matched were all presented in continuous binaural noise of three levels and, in different experiments, either the monaural or the binaural stimuli were adjusted by the observer. With 250- and 710-Hz tone bursts, there are large differences in loudness that, at low signal-to-noise ratios, depend on the interaural phase conditions in a manner consistent with the changes in masked threshold produced by the phase manipulation; there is little, if any, effect of interaural phase on loudness for 2-kHz signals. The effect of interaural phase on loudness decreases with increasing level but, at 250 Hz, remains measurable some 30-40 dB above masked threshold. The matching function for signals out-of-phase grows in proportion to the level to be matched over the entire range from masked threshold to the highest level used. In contrast, for the in-phase condition, the observers show a step at a level that depends both on frequency and on the observer from proportional growth near thresholds to parallel proportional growth some 6 to 12 dB higher.
Hearing Research 06/1991; 53(1):141-52. · 2.70 Impact Factor
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G B Henning
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ABSTRACT: With both broad-band and narrow-band noise maskers there is a small range of signal-to-noise ratios where, with the maskers in-phase and signals 180 degrees out-of-phase at the ears, detection performance grows with increasing signal-to-noise ratio but frequency discrimination performance does not. The observation may have significant consequences for our understanding of the way in which frequency is coded at low signal-to-noise ratios.
Hearing Research 11/1990; 48(3):195-200. · 2.70 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Frequency discrimination in noise at low signal-to-noise ratios where the signals to be discriminated are equally well detected but only faintly audible is better when the signals are in-phase at the ears than when they are out-of-phase. In spite of the difference in discriminability, however, the form of the dependence of the just-noticeable frequency difference on signal duration is the same in both cases.
Hearing Research 11/1990; 48(3):201-7. · 2.70 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Intense low-frequency tones produce masking-period patterns in which the masking of a higher-frequency tone burst varies by up to 25 dB over the period of the masker. In this experiment, observers were asked to match the loudness of partially masked test-tone bursts in one ear by adjusting the level of unmasked bursts presented to the other ear. It was found that the variation in masked threshold over the period of the masker also affects loudness matches. This effect on loudness, although it decreases in size with increasing level above masked threshold, persists even 25 dB above masked threshold.
Hearing Research 09/1990; 47(1-2):17-23. · 2.70 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Gratings that differ in orientation by as much as 62.5 deg from that of a signal grating raise the signal's threshold by nearly a log unit. The spatial-frequency tuning of the masking effect reaches a maximum slightly below the spatial frequency of the maskers but far from that of any quadratic distortion product. Further, the location of the peak does not depend much on the relative orientation of the signal and maskers thus making it unlikely that the masking effect can be explained in any simple way by the presence of visual nonlinearities. This illustrates the difficulty of attempting to explain human performance in even relatively simple discrimination experiments with models based on mechanisms tuned for spatial frequency and orientation.
Vision Research 02/1989; 29(2):241-6. · 2.41 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Moving one component of a stimulus comprising two sinusoidal gratings of the same orientation sometimes results in mistaken judgments of the direction of motion. If the component with the higher spatial frequency moves and the stimulus is presented briefly, observers report motion in the direction opposite that which actually occurs. The illusory, or backward, motion appears whether the movement producing it occurs smoothly or as a discrete jump at the midpoint of the stimulus presentation. At durations at which motion appears reversed, smooth and discrete motion are indistinguishable. Measurement of the speed of the illusory motion by a cancellation technique permits comparison with results from classical induced-motion paradigms; the classical effect, obtained with spatially separated components, is smaller but in the same direction as the errors in perceived direction of motion that we measure. We suggest that the errors in judging the direction of motion may result from interactions among motion detectors tuned to the different spatial-frequency components of the stimulus.
Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science 11/1988; 5(10):1759-66.
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G B Henning
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ABSTRACT: Spatial-frequency tuning at two different spatial frequencies was determined by measuring the detectability of a signal grating that was made difficult to see by low- or high-pass visual noise. The signals were vertical sinusoidal gratings of different spatial frequencies. The detectability of the signal was measured in two-alternative forced-choice tasks with different temporal envelopes: (1) a slowly changing raised-cosine (Hanning) window, (2) a rectangularly gated 2-Hz counterphase flickering envelope, and (3) a rectangularly gated 10-Hz counterphase flickering envelope. Additional measurements were made using drifting stimuli with the signal and noise drifting in the same or in opposite directions. The temporal envelopes were chosen because they have different effects on the contrast-sensitivity function and it was desired to know how temporal factors affect the spatial-frequency tuning of the relatively narrowly tuned channels thought to underlie contrast sensitivity. The results show that, for counterphase flickering stimuli, spatial-frequency tuning does not depend on temporal envelopes applied identically to the signal and to the masking noise. A similar picture emerges at slow (2.7-deg/sec) but not at fast (10.9-deg/sec) drift rates.
Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science 09/1988; 5(8):1362-73.
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ABSTRACT: The direction of apparent motion in a complex pattern comprising a static 1-cycle/degree (c/deg) grating and a moving 3-c/deg grating changes with stimulus duration. At durations longer than about 150 msec, motion is seen almost veridically; the motion of the 3-c/deg grating, which is seen correctly, merely induces in the 1-c/deg grating a weak apparent motion in the opposite direction. At shorter durations, however, the only motion seen is in the opposite direction from that which, in fact, occurs. The reversed apparent motion is both compelling and consistent; it is reported both by naive and by experienced observers, and, although it only occurs for certain ranges of spatial frequency, contrast and duration, the ranges are substantial. The reversal appears to be almost independent of the temporal frequency and the spatial phase of the stimulus; it occurs both for discrete and for continuous motion. It seems likely that the apparent motion with short duration stimuli reveals properties of local visual movement detection previously unknown and difficult to account for within the framework of current models of motion perception.
Vision Research 02/1987; 27(1):61-75. · 2.41 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: A simple extension of the Webster-Jeffress model is presented together with its predictions for the effects of various stimulus parameters on the size of binaural masking-level differences (BMLDs). The four factors leading to BMLDs (just-noticeable differences (JNDs), temporal effects in simultaneous masking, binaural interaction, and temporal effects in non-simultaneous masking) are described, new measurements of the effect of signal duration on the detectability of interaural delay are presented, and the high degree of correlation between observers' sensitivity to changes in level and their sensitivity to changes in interaural delay is demonstrated. A number of examples illustrating where knowledge of JNDs for level and interaural delay and their joint dependence on certain stimulus parameters are sufficient to predict BMLDs are discussed.
Hearing Research 02/1985; 19(1):29-47. · 2.70 Impact Factor
