Reaction Time as a Function of Onset and Offset Stimulation of the Fovea and Periphery

Pease, Victor; Sticht, Thomas G.

doi:10.2466/pms.1965.20.2.549

Cited by 26 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Bartlett, Stieht, and Pease (1968) and Pease and Sticht (1965) found the same result with small foveal stimuli lasting for between 2 and 4 sec. However, persistences of up to about 80 msec are found with the onset RT/offset RT method if either: (a) the stimuli are peripheral (Bartlett, Sticht, & Pease, 1968;Pease & Stieht, 1965), even with long-duration stimuli; or (b) the stimuli are brief (Briggs & Kinsbourne, 1972), even with foveal stimuli.…”

Section: The Onset/offset Reaction Time Techniquesupporting

confidence: 63%

“…If the pupil is not fully dilated, higher luminances would be required to reach this level of retinal illumination. Referring back to the various studies of visible persistence described earlier, and taking into account the use of artificial pupils in several of them and of light-adapted subjects in others, these calculations indicate that a retinal illuminance of 3 log Td was not approached in any of these studies except in some of the conditions of two of the studies using the reaction time technique (Pease & Sticht, 1965;Rains, 1961).…”

Section: Stimulus Luminance Retinal Illumination and Rod Saturationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rains found no differences between onset.R'Ts and offset RTs. A more extensive study was carried out by Pease and Sticht (1965). They used a small target (20 min in diameter) and presented it either to the fovea or to a point 15 deg from the fovea.…”

Section: The Onset/offset Reaction Time Techniquementioning

confidence: 99%

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Iconic memory and visible persistence

Coltheart

1980

Perception & Psychophysics

926

706

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There are three senses in which a visual stimulus may be said to persist psychologically for some time after its physical offset. First, neural activity in the visual system evoked by the stimulus may continue after stimulus offset ("neural persistence"). Second, the stimulus may continue to be visible for some time after its offset ("visible persistence"). Finally, information about visual properties of the stimulus may continue to be available to an observer for some time after stimulus offset ("informational persistence"). These three forms of visual persistence are widely assumed to reflect a single underlying process: a decaying visual trace that (1) consists of afteractivity in the visual system, (2) is visible, and (3) is the source of visual information in experiments on decaying visual memory. It is argued here that this assumption is incorrect. Studies of visible persistence are reviewed; seven different techniques that have been used for investigating visible persistence are identified, and it is pointed out that numerous studies using a variety of techniques have demonstrated two fundamental properties of visible persistence: the inverse duration effect (the longer a stimulus lasts, the shorter is its persistence after stimulus offset) and the inverse intensity effect (the more intense the stimulus, the briefer its persistence). Only when stimuli are so intense as to produce afterimages do these two effects fail to occur. Work on neural persistences is briefly reviewed; such persistences exist at the photoreceptor level and at various stages in the visual pathways. It is proposed that visible persistence depends upon both of these types of neural persistence; furthermore, there must be an additional neural locus, since a purely stereoscopic (and hence cortical) form of visible persistence exists. It is argued that informational persistence is defined by the use of the partial report methods introduced by Averbach and Coriell (1961) and Sperling (1960), and the term "iconic memory" is used to describe this form of persistence. Several studies of the effects of stimulus duration and stimulus intensity upon the duration of iconic memory have been carried out. Their results demonstrate that the duration of iconic memory is not inversely related to stimulus duration or stimulus intensity. It follows that informational persistence or iconic memory cannot be identified with visible persistence, since they have fundamentally different properties. One implication of this claim is that one cannot investigate iconic memory by tasks that require the subject to make phenomenological judgments about the duration of a visual display. In other words, the so-called "direct methods" for studying iconic memory do not provide information about iconic memory. Another implication is that iconic memory is not intimately tied to processes going on in the visual system (as visible persistence is); provided a stimulus is adequately legible, its physical parameters have little influence upon its iconic memory. The paper concl...

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Section: The Onset/offset Reaction Time Techniquesupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: Stimulus Luminance Retinal Illumination and Rod Saturationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Iconic memory and visible persistence

Coltheart

1980

Perception & Psychophysics

926

706

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“…Pease and Sticht (1965) have reported that reaction time to the onset and to the offset of a visual stimulus is influenced by the location, fovea or periphery, of the signal. Also, Grondin and Rousseau (1991) have reported that having the second marker of an A-V sequence delivered at the periphery rather than at fovea greatly reduces the perceived duration of such a sequence; along the same line, they also have reported that, in a V-A sequence, the perceived duration is much shorter when the first marker is delivered from the periphery rather than from fovea.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Judgments of the duration of visually marked empty time intervals: Linking perceived duration and sensitivity

Grondin

1998

Perception & Psychophysics

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The capability of subjects to categorize (as short or long) visually marked empty time intervals was investigated in three experiments. Two visual signals, located 18°to the left (L) and to the right (R) of a fixation point in the visual field, established four marking conditions, two unilaterally presented (L-L and R-R) and two bilaterally presented (L-R and R-L). In Experiments 1 and 2, the results show that discrimination is better with unilateral sequences than with bilateral sequences and that the perceived duration is longer with an L-R than with an R-L sequence. In addition, Experiment 2 shows that, in comparison with a condition in which Markers I and 2 remain identical for a complete session, varying the markers from trial to trial does not decrease discrimination. Also, Experiment 2 shows that discrimination is better when both visual markers are presented at fovea than it is in the unilateral conditions. Experiment 3 shows that bilateral intervals are perceived as being longer and are better discriminated than are intervals marked by an intermodal sequence (auditory-visual or visual-auditory). The general discussion reports the implications of having different perceived duration and sensitivity levels, in various marker-type conditions, for an internal-clock hypothesis. Some implications of these results for a lateralized-timer hypothesis are also discussed.

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“…However, he suggested that differences may appear when a small, dim peripheral flash is employed. Pursuing this suggestion, Pease and Sticht (1965) investigated RT as a function of onset, offset, location and luminance of visual stimuli presented either foveally or peripherally. When stimuli were presented to the periphery, R T was significantly longer for the offset of the scimulus than for the onset.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Effect of a Border on Reaction Time to Onset and Offset Stimulation in the Fovea

Versteeg

1970

Percept Mot Skills

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Reaction times were obtained to the onset and offset of flash stimuli located in various positions in a visual field divided into two contiguous regions of white and black. With presentation of the flash stimuli in the fovea, there were no significant differences in the character of functional onset and offset RTs or in the character of the function relating RT to distance from the border. There was a border effect operative for both functions; a decrease in both onset and offset RTs appeared as the border was approached from the white side and a slight increase in both onset and offset RTs when the border was approached from the black side.Several psychophysical studies have examined the differences in response to the onset and offset of stimulation in the visual system using reaction time ( R T ) as the response measure. Rains (1961) reported no differences between RTs to the offset or the onset of a bright (344 millilambert) luminance. However, he suggested that differences may appear when a small, dim peripheral flash is employed. Pursuing this suggestion, Pease and Sticht (1965) investigated RT as a function of onset, offset, location and luminance of visual stimuli presented either foveally or peripherally. When stimuli were presented to the periphery, R T was significantly longer for the offset of the scimulus than for the onset. Bartlett, Sticht, and Pease (1968) measured onset and offset RTs to two wavebands in both the fovea and periphery. The wavebands were selected with the intention of isolating foveal and peripheral systems. RTs to onsets were significantly faster than to offsets for the peripheral data while the on-off differences for the fovea were not significant. It was further reported that the on-off differences were independent of wavelength.Single unit studies ( Baumgartner, 1961;Granit, 1955 ) have suggested that the activation of "on-off" units may play a role in the production of contrast effects. Baumgartner examined the responses of single units in the optic tract with patterns of contrasting dark and illuminated stripes. With this stimulus pattern, the "on" unit showed maximum response when its receptive field was located near the edge of an illuminated stripe. Its "off" response was greatest when its receptive field was outside the illuminated stripe. These results suggest that the functional "on" and "off" units may afford an analogy with the enhancement of boundaries by contrast.The present experiment was undertaken in order to determine if foveal onset and offset RTs would vary as a function of the proximity to a border in a 'This paper is based on the author's MA thesis resented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for that degree.

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Reaction Time as a Function of Onset and Offset Stimulation of the Fovea and Periphery

Cited by 26 publications

References 5 publications

Iconic memory and visible persistence

Iconic memory and visible persistence

Judgments of the duration of visually marked empty time intervals: Linking perceived duration and sensitivity

Effect of a Border on Reaction Time to Onset and Offset Stimulation in the Fovea

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