Temporal Integration and Contrast Sensitivity in Foveal and Peripheral Vision

Spatial contrast sensitivity functions and temporal integration functions for gratings with dark surrounds were measured at various eccentricities in photopic vision. Contrast sensitivity decreased with increasing eccentricity at all exposure durations and spatial frequencies tested. The decrease was faster at high than at low spatial frequencies, but similar at different exposure durations. When cortically similar stimulus conditions were produced at different eccentricities by M-scaling, contrast sensitivity became independent of visual field location at all exposure durations tested. The results support the view that in photopic vision spatiotemporal information processing is qualitatively similar across the visual field, and that quantitative differences result from retinotopical differences in ganglion cell sampling. For gratings of constant retinal area temporal integration (improvement of contrast sensitivity with increasing exposure duration) was more extensive at high than at low retinal spatial frequencies but independent of cortical spatial frequency and eccentricity. For M-scaled gratings temporal integration was more extensive at high than at low cortical spatial frequencies but independent of retinal spatial frequency and eccentricity. The results suggest that the primary determinant of temporal integration is not spatial frequency but grating value that is calculated as AF2 square cycles (cycle2), where A is grating area and F spatial frequency.

[1]  John H. R. Maunsell,et al.  The middle temporal visual area in the macaque: Myeloarchitecture, connections, functional properties and topographic organization , 1981, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[2]  P. Schiller,et al.  Properties and tectal projections of monkey retinal ganglion cells. , 1977, Journal of neurophysiology.

[3]  R Hilz,et al.  Functional organization of the peripheral retina: sensitivity to periodic stimuli. , 1974, Vision research.

[4]  W. Charman,et al.  Off-axis image quality in the human eye , 1981, Vision Research.

[5]  G. Legge.  Sustained and transient mechanisms in human vision: Temporal and spatial properties , 1978, Vision Research.

[6]  R. G. Waarts,et al.  Contrast detection and its dependence on the presence of edges and lines in the stimulus field , 1983, Vision Research.

[7]  L. M. Katz,et al.  On the Necessity of Correcting Peripheral Target Luminance for Pupillary Area , 1982, American journal of optometry and physiological optics.

[8]  P. Gouras,et al.  Spatial summation, response pattern and conduction velocity of ganglion cells of the rhesus monkey retina , 1976, Vision Research.

[9]  G. Westheimer.  The spatial grain of the perifoveal visual field , 1982, Vision Research.

[10]  N. Drasdo.  The neural representation of visual space , 1977, Nature.

[11]  Gerald Westheimer,et al.  Temporal order detection for foveal and peripheral visual stimuli , 1983, Vision Research.

[12]  J. Kulikowski,et al.  Contribution of two movement detecting mechanisms to central and peripheral vision , 1983, Vision Research.

[13]  R P Scobey,et al.  Human visual orientation discrimination. , 1982, Journal of neurophysiology.

[14]  J J Koenderink,et al.  Perimetry of contrast detection thresholds of moving spatial sine wave patterns. IV. The influence of the mean retinal illuminance. , 1978, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[15]  F. Campbell,et al.  Optical quality of the human eye , 1966, The Journal of physiology.

[16]  Robert Michael Jones,et al.  The effect of micromovements of the eye and exposure duration on contrast sensitivity , 1976, Vision Research.

[17]  D. Tolhurst,et al.  Psychophysical evidence for sustained and transient detectors in human vision , 1973, The Journal of physiology.

[18]  M. A. Bouman,et al.  Perimetry of contrast detection thresholds of moving spatial sine wave patterns. III. The target extent as a sensitivity controlling parameter. , 1978, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[19]  J. Nachmias.  Effect of Exposure Duration on Visual Contrast Sensitivity with Square-Wave Gratings*† , 1967 .

[20]  R. Hess,et al.  The functional area for summation to threshold for sinusoidal gratings , 1978, Vision Research.

[21]  D. R. Hampton,et al.  Fusional vergence response to local peripheral stimulation. , 1983, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[22]  H. Wässle,et al.  Size, scatter and coverage of ganglion cell receptive field centres in the cat retina. , 1979, The Journal of physiology.

[23]  S. Sherman,et al.  Spatial and temporal sensitivity of X- and Y-cells in dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus of the cat. , 1980, Journal of neurophysiology.

[24]  M. J. Wright,et al.  Visual motion and cortical velocity , 1983, Nature.

[25]  J Rovamo,et al.  Resolution of gratings oriented along and across meridians in peripheral vision. , 1982, Investigative ophthalmology & visual science.

[26]  Chris A. Johnson,et al.  Velocity-time reciprocity in the perception of motion: Foveal and peripheral determinations , 1976, Vision Research.

[27]  A. Johnston,et al.  Spatiotemporal contrast sensitivity and visual field locus , 1983, Vision Research.

[28]  F. W. Weymouth.  Visual sensory units and the minimal angle of resolution. , 1958, American journal of ophthalmology.

[29]  Jyrki Rovamo,et al.  Critical flicker frequency and M-scaling of stimulus size and retinal illuminance , 1984, Vision Research.

[30]  J. Koenderink,et al.  Sensitivity to spatiotemporal colour contrast in the peripheral visual field , 1983, Vision Research.

[31]  J. Rovamo,et al.  Temporal contrast sensitivity and cortical magnification , 1982, Vision Research.

[32]  G. B. Wetherill,et al.  SEQUENTIAL ESTIMATION OF POINTS ON A PSYCHOMETRIC FUNCTION. , 1965, The British journal of mathematical and statistical psychology.

[33]  H. Matteson.  Effects of surround luminance on perceptual latency in the fovea. , 1971, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[34]  P Lennie,et al.  Perceptual signs of parallel pathways. , 1980, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[35]  B. N. Kishto,et al.  Variation of the visual threshold with retinal location: Part I. The central 20° of visual field Part II. The fovea , 1970 .

[36]  David H. Foster,et al.  The fine-grain movement illusion: A perceptual probe of neuronal connectivity in the human visual system , 1981, Vision Research.

[37]  C. Gross,et al.  Visual topography of striate projection zone (MT) in posterior superior temporal sulcus of the macaque. , 1981, Journal of neurophysiology.

[38]  D. Whitteridge,et al.  The representation of the visual field on the cerebral cortex in monkeys , 1961, The Journal of physiology.

[39]  G. Celesia,et al.  Pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials and retinal eccentricity. , 1982, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[40]  J. Rovamo,et al.  Cortical magnification factor predicts the photopic contrast sensitivity of peripheral vision , 1978, Nature.

[41]  G. Westheimer,et al.  Effects of practice and the separation of test targets on foveal and peripheral stereoacuity , 1983, Vision Research.

[42]  J Rovamo,et al.  Cortical magnification factor and contrast sensitivity to luminance-modulated chromatic gratings. , 1983, Acta physiologica Scandinavica.