Sperling, G. | Engineering Papers

NASA NTRS1995

1st- and 2nd-order motion and texture resolution in central and peripheral vision

STIMULI. The 1st-order stimuli are moving sine gratings. The 2nd-order stimuli are fields of static visual texture, whose contrasts are modulated by moving sine gratings. Neither the spatial slant (orientation) nor the direction of motion of these 2nd-order (microbalanced) stimuli can be detected by a Fourier analysis; they are invisible to Reichardt and motion-energy detectors. METHOD. For these dynamic stimuli, when presented both centrally and in an annular window extending from 8 to 10 deg in eccentricity, we measured the highest spatial frequency for which discrimination between +/- 45 deg texture slants and discrimination between opposite directions of motion were each possible. RESULTS. For sufficiently low spatial frequencies, slant and direction can be discriminated in both central and peripheral vision, for both 1st- and for 2nd-order stimuli. For both 1st- and 2nd-order stimuli, at both retinal locations, slant discrimination is possible at higher spatial frequencies than direction discrimination. For both 1st- and 2nd-order stimuli, motion resolution decreases 2-3 times more rapidly with eccentricity than does texture resolution. CONCLUSIONS. (1) 1st- and 2nd-order motion scale similarly with eccentricity. (2) 1st- and 2nd-order texture scale similarly with eccentricity. (3) The central/peripheral resolution fall-off is 2-3 times greater for motion than for texture.

Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology↗

NASA NTRS1994

Full-wave and half-wave rectification in second-order motion perception

Microbalanced stimuli are dynamic displays which do not stimulate motion mechanisms that apply standard (Fourier-energy or autocorrelational) motion analysis directly to the visual signal. In order to extract motion information from microbalanced stimuli, Chubb and Sperling [(1988) Journal of the Optical Society of America, 5, 1986-2006] proposed that the human visual system performs a rectifying transformation on the visual signal prior to standard motion analysis. The current research employs two novel types of microbalanced stimuli: half-wave stimuli preserve motion information following half-wave rectification (with a threshold) but lose motion information following full-wave rectification; full-wave stimuli preserve motion information following full-wave rectification but lose motion information following half-wave rectification. Additionally, Fourier stimuli, ordinary square-wave gratings, were used to stimulate standard motion mechanisms. Psychometric functions (direction discrimination vs stimulus contrast) were obtained for each type of stimulus when presented alone, and when masked by each of the other stimuli (presented as moving masks and also as nonmoving, counterphase-flickering masks). RESULTS: given sufficient contrast, all three types of stimulus convey motion. However, only one-third of the population can perceive the motion of the half-wave stimulus. Observers are able to process the motion information contained in the Fourier stimulus slightly more efficiently than the information in the full-wave stimulus but are much less efficient in processing half-wave motion information. Moving masks are more effective than counterphase masks at hampering direction discrimination, indicating that some of the masking effect is interference between motion mechanisms, and some occurs at earlier stages. When either full-wave and Fourier or half-wave and Fourier gratings are presented simultaneously, there is a wide range of relative contrasts within which the motion directions of both gratings are easily determinable. Conversely, when half-wave and full-wave gratings are combined, the direction of only one of these gratings can be determined with high accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: the results indicate that three motion computations are carried out, any two in parallel: one standard ("first order") and two non-Fourier ("second-order") computations that employ full-wave and half-wave rectification.

Motion Perception/physiology↗