Fechner's Elusive Parallel Law

Ross, Helen E.; Wade, Nicholas

doi:10.1163/187847510x523973

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 38 publications

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“…The more general question of whether the appearance of a stimulus should be associated with visual performance is a longstanding question that dates back to the beginnings of psychophysical research (Fechner, 1860/1966 ; Ross & Wade, 2010 ). Initially it may seem intuitive to assume visual performance should follow the perceived properties of the stimulus as though they were physically manipulated, but on closer inspection, this relationship is not trivial.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual crowding is unaffected by adaptation-induced spatial compression

2018

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It has recently been shown that adapting to a densely textured stimulus alters the perception of visual space, such that the distance between two points subsequently presented in the adapted region appears reduced (Hisakata, Nishida, & Johnston, 2016). We asked whether this form of adaptation-induced spatial compression alters visual crowding. To address this question, we first adapted observers to a dynamic dot texture presented within an annular region surrounding the test location. Following adaptation, observers perceived a test array comprised of multiple oriented dot dipoles as spatially compressed, resulting in an overall reduction in perceived size. We then tested to what extent this spatial compression influences crowding by measuring orientation discrimination of a single dipole flanked by randomly oriented dipoles across a range of separations. Following adaptation, we found that the magnitude of crowding was predicted by the physical rather than perceptual separation between center and flanking dipoles. These findings contrast with previous studies in which crowding has been shown to increase when motion-induced position shifts act to reduce apparent separation (Dakin, Greenwood, Carlson, & Bex, 2011; Maus, Fischer, & Whitney, 2011).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual crowding is unaffected by adaptation-induced spatial compression

2018

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The edge of awareness: Mask spatial density, but not color, determines optimal temporal frequency for continuous flash suppression

2018

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The study of how visual processing functions in the absence of visual awareness has become a major research interest in the vision-science community. One of the main sources of evidence that stimuli that do not reach conscious awareness-and are thus "invisible"-are still processed to some degree by the visual system comes from studies using continuous flash suppression (CFS). Why and how CFS works may provide more general insight into how stimuli access awareness. As spatial and temporal properties of stimuli are major determinants of visual perception, we hypothesized that these properties of the CFS masks would be of significant importance to the achieved suppression depth. In previous studies however, the spatial and temporal properties of the masks themselves have received little study, and masking parameters vary widely across studies, making a metacomparison difficult. To investigate the factors that determine the effectiveness of CFS, we varied both the temporal frequency and the spatial density of Mondrian-style masks. We consistently found the longest suppression duration for a mask temporal frequency of around 6 Hz. In trials using masks with reduced spatial density, suppression was weaker and frequency tuning was less precise. In contrast, removing color reduced mask effectiveness but did not change the pattern of suppression strength as a function of frequency. Overall, this pattern of results stresses the importance of CFS mask parameters and is consistent with the idea that CFS works by disrupting the spatiotemporal mechanisms that underlie conscious access to visual input.

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Fechner's Elusive Parallel Law

Cited by 2 publications

References 38 publications

Visual crowding is unaffected by adaptation-induced spatial compression

Visual crowding is unaffected by adaptation-induced spatial compression

The edge of awareness: Mask spatial density, but not color, determines optimal temporal frequency for continuous flash suppression

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