Two components to visible persistence: Effects of orientation and contrast

Abstract It has been hypothesised, that visible persistence consists of two components, one of which was identified with temporal integration and thought to occur at the peripheral level of the visual system. The second component may occur at later stages of visual processing. These hypotheses were investigated by examining the effect of orientation upon persistence across a range of spatial frequencies and exposure durations. Oblique gratings ranging from 2 to 12 c/deg were shown to persist longer than vertical stimuli at both 50 and 200 msec exposure durations. For a 4 c/deg stimulus, this “oblique effect” was relatively constant across stimulus durations from 50 to 300 msec. The relationship between persistence and stimulus duration was best fitted by two straight lines, which intersected at the approximate duration of temporal integration for a 4 c/deg grating. The stimulus durations of the intersection points were similar for oblique and vertical gratings, indicating that the duration of the hypothesised first persistence component was not affected by orientation. The data thus support the hypothesis that orientation influences the duration of only the second persistence component, indicating that this component may be due to cortical processes. A further study indicated that contrast predominantly affects the duration of the second persistence component.

[1]  B. Breitmeyer,et al.  Temporal studies with flashed gratings: Inferences about human transient and sustained channels , 1977, Vision Research.

[2]  W. Lovegrove,et al.  The Effect of Spatial Frequency and Contrast on Visual Persistence , 1979, Perception.

[3]  R Blake,et al.  The Effects of Temporal Modulation on the Oblique Effect in Humans , 1977, Perception.

[4]  G L Shulman,et al.  Two definitions of persistence in visual perception , 1979, Perception & psychophysics.

[5]  S. Appelle.  Perception and discrimination as a function of stimulus orientation: the "oblique effect" in man and animals. , 1972, Psychological bulletin.

[6]  P Lennie,et al.  Head orientation and meridional variations in acuity. , 1974, Vision research.

[7]  P. E. Hallett,et al.  Primary and secondary saccades to goals defined by instructions , 1978, Vision Research.

[8]  H. Meiselman,et al.  Incomplete taste adaptation to different concentrations of salt and sugar solutions , 1977 .

[9]  J. Roufs.  Dynamic properties of vision. I. Experimental relationships between flicker and flash thresholds. , 1972, Vision research.

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

[11]  F. Campbell,et al.  The effect of orientation on the visual resolution of gratings , 1966, The Journal of physiology.

[12]  H. Hirsch,et al.  Effects of early experience upon orientation sensitivity and binocularity of neurons in visual cortex of cats. , 1977, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[13]  V. Lollo,et al.  Iconic persistence and perceptual moment as determinants of temporal integration in vision , 1978, Vision Research.

[14]  W. Lovegrove,et al.  The effect of stimulus duration on the persistence of gratings , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.

[15]  G. Meyer,et al.  The effects of orientation-specific adaptation on the duration of short-term visual storage , 1975, Vision Research.

[16]  W. Lovegrove,et al.  Response times to different spatial frequencies: Is there a 100-msec rule? , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.

[17]  Y. Frégnac,et al.  Early development of visual cortical cells in normal and dark‐reared kittens: relationship between orientation selectivity and ocular dominance. , 1978, The Journal of physiology.

[18]  R. Haber,et al.  Direct Measures of Short-Term Visual Storage , 1969, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[19]  L. Maffei,et al.  Spatial Frequency Channels: Neural Mechanisms , 1978 .

[20]  W. Levick,et al.  Responses of cat retinal ganglion cells to brief flashes of light , 1970, The Journal of physiology.

[21]  W. Maguire,et al.  Spatial frequency and the mediation of short-term visual storage , 1977, Science.

[22]  F. W. Campbell,et al.  Grey-out elimination: The roles of spatial waveform, frequency and phase , 1978, Vision Research.

[23]  V. Lollo,et al.  Temporal characteristics of iconic memory , 1977, Nature.

[24]  M. Mayer.  Development of anisotropy in late childhood , 1977, Vision Research.

[25]  M. Turvey.  On peripheral and central processes in vision: inferences from an information-processing analysis of masking with patterned stimuli. , 1973, Psychological review.

[26]  B. Sakitt,et al.  Cones determine subjective offset of a stimulus but rods determine total persistence , 1979, Vision Research.

[27]  F. Kitterle,et al.  Pattern alternation: Effects of spatial frequency and orientation , 1974 .

[28]  Stimulus orientation and retinal summation. , 1962, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[29]  M. Coltheart,et al.  Iconic memory and visible persistence , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.

[30]  F. Campbell,et al.  Saccadic omission: Why we do not see a grey-out during a saccadic eye movement , 1978, Vision Research.

[31]  D. W. Watkins,et al.  Grating visibility as a function of orientation and retinal eccentricity , 1975, Vision Research.

[32]  Gerald M. Long,et al.  Commenton Hawkins and Shulman’s Type I and Type II visual persistence , 1979 .

[33]  G. Meyer.  The effects of color-specific adaptation on the perceived duration of gratings , 1977, Vision Research.