Spatial frequencies and the cerebral hemispheres: Contrast sensitivity, visible persistence, and letter classification

Peterzell, David H.; Harvey, Lewis O.; Hardyck, Curtis

doi:10.3758/bf03210859

Cited by 41 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(78 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…With the detection task, a number of studies have failed to find hemispheric differences in contrast sensitivity (Blake & Mills, 1979;Fiorentini & Berardi, 1984;Kitterle & Kaye, 1985;Peterzell et al, 1989;Rao, Rourke, & Whitman, 1981). Earlier studies that showed hemispheric differences in contrast sensitivity (Beaton & Blakemore, 1981;Rovamo & Virsu, 1979) have not been replicated, and it is possible that these earlier findings were the result of individual differences in nasal and temporal hemiretinal sensitivity, since only monocular viewing was used.…”

Section: Strategy 2: Simple Stimulimentioning

confidence: 55%

“…He found that low-pass blur produced greater LH impairment. Finally, Peterzell, Harvey, and Hardyck (1989) used band-pass filtering in a letter-classification task and found no interaction between spatial frequency and.hemispheric advantage.…”

Section: Strategy 1: Complex Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the inconsistent results obtained by Peterzell et al (1989) and by Sergent (1987) may have arisen due to task, as well as input, characteristics.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Hemispheric differences are found in the identification, but not the detection, of low versus high spatial frequencies

Kitterle

Christman

Hellige

1990

Perception & Psychophysics

154

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The processing of sine-wave gratings presented to the left and right visual fields was examined in four experiments. Subjects were required either to detect the presence of a grating (Experiments 1 and 2) or to identify the spatial frequency of a grating (Experiments 3 and 4). Orthogonally to this, the stimuli were presented either at threshold levels of contrast (Experiments 1 and 3) or at suprathreshold levels (Experiments 2 and 4). Visual field and spatial frequency interacted when the task required identification of spatial frequency, but not when it required only stimulus detection. Regardless of contrast level (threshold, suprathreshold), high-frequency gratings were identified more readily in the right visual field (left hemisphere), whereas low-frequency gratings showed no visual field difference (Experiment 3) or were identified more readily in the left visual field (right hemisphere) (Experiment 4). Thus, hemispheric asymmetries in the processing of spatial frequencies depend on the task. These results support Sergent's (1982) spatial frequency hypothesis, but only when the computational demands of the task exceed those required for the simple detection of the stimuli.Perceptual characteristics of input, as well as cognitive characteristics of task, have been shown (by, e.g., Sergent & Hellige, 1986) to influence obtained patterns of cerebral asymmetry. Sergent (1982Sergent ( , 1983 proposed that the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) is specialized for the perceptual processing of higher spatial frequencies, and that the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF /RH) is specialized for the processing of lower spatial frequencies. Two general strategies, one involving complex stimuli and the other, simple stimuli, have been employed in testing this hypothesis, and each strategy will be discussed below in turn. Strategy 1: Complex StimuliFirst, some researchers have used complex stimuli (e.g., alphanumeric characters, faces) and have varied input characteristics (e.g., size, eccentricity, luminance, exposure duration) in order to vary the proportion of high and low frequencies in the input. When Christman (1989) reviewed such studies, he found moderate support for the spatial frequency hypothesis. However, the manipulations used in these studies have only crude and/or indirect effects on the spatial frequency content of the input, and thus they cannot be considered simple or straightforward manipulations of spatial frequency as opposed to other input variables (e.g., stimulus perceptibility; see Michimata & Hellige, 1987).In only four studies have quantitative forms of spatial filtering been employed to directly test the spatial frequency hypothesis. Sergent (1985) presented clear versus low-pass blurred faces and found, as predicted by the hypothesis, that low-pass blurring produced greater relative LH impairment. In a similar experiment, however, Sergent (1987) obtained an LH advantage with broad-pass faces and no hemispheric differences with low-pass faces. Christman (1990) used dioptric blur...

show abstract

Section: Strategy 2: Simple Stimulimentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Strategy 1: Complex Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Hemispheric differences are found in the identification, but not the detection, of low versus high spatial frequencies

Kitterle

Christman

Hellige

1990

Perception & Psychophysics

154

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…far above threshold. Moreover, it has been proposed that LH-RH sensitivity differences may actually reflect hemispheric criterion changes (Peterzell et al, 1989), to which forced-choice procedures such as the classification tasks in our experiments are unsusceptible.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…With regard to contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency the evidence is mixed but may be attributed to task differences (cf. Rao, Rourke & Whitman, 1981;Silva, Maia-Lopes, Mateus, Guerreiro, Sampaio, Faria & Castel-Branco, 2007; but: Beaton & Blakemore, 1981;Kitterle & Kay 1985;Peterzell, Harvey & Hardyck, 1989). However, this should not have affected our results as all our patterns were high-contrast stimuli, i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential impact of posterior lesions in the left and right hemisphere on visual category learning and generalization to contrast reversal

et al. 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hemispheric Differences for Visual Matrix Processing: Stimulus Size and Spatial Frequency Effects

Pedersen

Polich

2001

Brain and Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spatial frequencies and the cerebral hemispheres: Contrast sensitivity, visible persistence, and letter classification

Cited by 41 publications

References 43 publications

Hemispheric differences are found in the identification, but not the detection, of low versus high spatial frequencies

Hemispheric differences are found in the identification, but not the detection, of low versus high spatial frequencies

Differential impact of posterior lesions in the left and right hemisphere on visual category learning and generalization to contrast reversal

Hemispheric Differences for Visual Matrix Processing: Stimulus Size and Spatial Frequency Effects

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About