Abstract

We studied shifts in perceived spatial frequency of foveally viewed stimuli as a function of contrast, using lower contrasts and/or a lower range of spatial frequencies than used previously by others. Reliable shifts in perceived spatial frequency were found, but the direction of the shift at low frequencies was not the same as at high frequencies for some observers. Models based on either light scatter or an early compressive nonlinearity (transducer function) probably cannot account for these results. A multiple spatial-frequency-channels model in which a nonlinear contrast-transfer function (CTF) follows the output of each channel, however, is consistent with most of the results for suprathreshold contrasts. We considered several versions of this latter model, differing in their assumptions about the peak frequencies and bandwidths of the underlying channels, the shape of the CTF, and the combination rule by which the outputs of the channels are labeled and combined according to a weighted average.

© 1986 Optical Society of America

Modeling shifts in perceived spatial frequency between the fovea and the periphery

Elizabeth Thorpe Davis
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 7(2) 286-296 (1990)

Comparison of perceived spatial frequency between the fovea and the periphery

Elizabeth Thorpe Davis, Dean Yager, and Barri J. Jones
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4(8) 1606-1611 (1987)

Chromaticity discrimination: effects of luminance contrast and spatial frequency

A. E. Elsner, Joel Pokorny, and Stephen A. Burns
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(7) 916-920 (1986)

Perceived contrast in the fovea and periphery

Mark W. Cannon
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2(10) 1760-1768 (1985)

Spatial-frequency discrimination in cats

Randolph Blake, Karen Holopigian, and Hugh R. Wilson
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(9) 1443-1449 (1986)