Suppressive and facilitatory spatial interactions in foveal vision: foveal crowding is simple contrast masking.

Spatial interactions are a critical and ubiquitous feature of spatial vision. These interactions may be inhibitory (reducing sensitivity as occurs in crowding) or facilitatory (enhancing sensitivity). In this work, we had four goals. 1. To test the hypothesis that foveal crowding depends on target size by measuring the extent of crowding for novel targets that were limited in their spatial frequency content. We used a large range of target sizes and spatial frequencies. 2. To assess whether the critical spatial frequency model (Hess, Dakin, & Kapoor, 2000) provides a general model for foveal crowding. To test this model, we measured crowding for a direction-identification task that did not require judging the orientation of the gap. 3. To test the hypothesis that foveal crowding is simply contrast masking by remote flanks we measured and compared crowding in a direction-identification experiment with masking by remote flanks in a detection experiment. In each of the experiments, our targets and flanks were composed of Gabor features, thus allowing us to control the feature contrast, spatial frequency, and orientation. 4. To assess the relationship between suppressive and facilitatory spatial interactions in foveal vision. Our results show that (1) foveal crowding is proportional to feature size over the more than 50-fold range of target sizes that we examined. Over this large range, foveal crowding is scale invariant. Our results also show it is the size of the envelope (SD) rather than the carrier (SF) that determines the extent of crowding in the fovea. 2. Crowding that occurs in the direction-identification task is quite similar to crowding where orientation information is available. Thus we conclude that the critical spatial frequency model does not provide a general explanation for foveal crowding. 3. Threshold elevation for crowding is similar to threshold elevation for masking as predicted by our test-pedestal model. Thus we conclude that foveal crowding is simple contrast masking. 4. Based on our comparison of threshold changes in crowding and masking, we conclude that in foveal vision, the suppressive spatial interactions due to nearby flanks are similar in the two tasks. However, the facilitatory interactions are quite different. In the crowding task, we find very little evidence for facilitation by flankers, whereas in the detection task, we find strong facilitation. We suggest that facilitation of detection by remote flanks may be, at least in part, a consequence of uncertainty reduction.

[1]  V. M. Bondarko,et al.  What spatial frequency do we use to detect the orientation of a Landolt C? , 1997, Vision Research.

[2]  M C FLOM,et al.  Contour Interaction and Visual Resolution: Contralateral Effects , 1963, Science.

[3]  D. Sagi,et al.  Isolating Excitatory and Inhibitory Nonlinear Spatial Interactions Involved in Contrast Detection * * Part of this paper was presented at the 17th ECVP conference, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (September 1994). , 1996, Vision Research.

[4]  D. Levi,et al.  The effect of similarity and duration on spatial interaction in peripheral vision. , 1994, Spatial vision.

[5]  D. Levi,et al.  Spatial facilitation predicted with end-stopped spatial filters , 1997, Vision Research.

[6]  G Wolford,et al.  Contour interaction as a function of retinal eccentricity , 1984, Perception & psychophysics.

[7]  U. Polat,et al.  Abnormal Long-range Spatial Interactions in Amblyopia , 1997, Vision Research.

[8]  Dennis M. Levi,et al.  Equivalent intrinsic blur in spatial vision , 1990, Vision Research.

[9]  H. BOUMA,et al.  Interaction Effects in Parafoveal Letter Recognition , 1970, Nature.

[10]  P. Cavanagh,et al.  Attentional resolution and the locus of visual awareness , 1996, Nature.

[11]  Susana T. L. Chung,et al.  Spatial-frequency characteristics of letter identification in central and peripheral vision , 2002, Vision Research.

[12]  Denis G. Pelli,et al.  The visual filter mediating letter identification , 1994, Nature.

[13]  D. Heeger,et al.  Measurement and modeling of center-surround suppression and enhancement , 2001, Vision Research.

[14]  Mark W. Cannon,et al.  Spatial interactions in apparent contrast: Inhibitory effects among grating patterns of different spatial frequencies, spatial positions and orientations , 1991, Vision Research.

[15]  Robert F Hess,et al.  The foveal ‘crowding’ effect: physics or physiology? , 2000, Vision Research.

[16]  G. Blasdel,et al.  Intrinsic connections of macaque striate cortex: afferent and efferent connections of lamina 4C , 1985, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[17]  S. Klein,et al.  Vernier acuity, crowding and cortical magnification , 1985, Vision Research.

[18]  H. Wilson,et al.  Lateral interactions in peripherally viewed texture arrays. , 1997, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[19]  J. Lund,et al.  Intrinsic laminar lattice connections in primate visual cortex , 1983, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[20]  Gerald Westheimer,et al.  Temporal and spatial interference with vernier acuity , 1975, Vision Research.

[21]  N. Graham.  Visual Pattern Analyzers , 1989 .

[22]  J. M. Foley,et al.  Contrast masking in human vision. , 1980, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[23]  D M Levi,et al.  Surround modulation of perceived contrast and the role of brightness induction. , 2001, Journal of vision.

[24]  U. Polat.  Functional architecture of long-range perceptual interactions. , 1999, Spatial vision.

[25]  M. Morgan,et al.  Facilitation from collinear flanks is cancelled by non-collinear flanks , 2000, Vision Research.

[26]  R F Hess,et al.  Contour interaction in fovea and periphery. , 2000, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[27]  G. Sperling,et al.  The lateral inhibition of perceived contrast is indifferent to on-center/off-center segregation, but specific to orientation , 1993, Vision Research.

[28]  S. Klein,et al.  Facilitation of contrast detection by cross-oriented surround stimuli and its psychophysical mechanisms. , 2002, Journal of vision.

[29]  Birgitta Dresp.  Bright lines and edges facilitate the detection of small light targets. , 1993, Spatial vision.

[30]  Dennis M. Levi,et al.  Spatial interval discrimination with blurred lines: Black and white are separate but not equal at multiple spatial scales , 1990, Vision Research.

[31]  D. Fitzpatrick.  Seeing beyond the receptive field in primary visual cortex , 2000, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[32]  S. Klein,et al.  Suppressive and facilitatory spatial interactions in amblyopic vision , 2002, Vision Research.

[33]  Gerald Westheimer,et al.  Interference with stereoscopic acuity: Spatial, temporal, and disparity tuning , 1978, Vision Research.

[34]  M. J. Morgan,et al.  Contrast detection facilitation by spatially separated targets and inducers , 1995, Vision Research.

[35]  K. Alexander,et al.  Spatial-frequency characteristics of letter identification. , 1994, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[36]  U. Polat,et al.  The architecture of perceptual spatial interactions , 1994, Vision Research.

[37]  D. Sagi,et al.  Excitatory-inhibitory network in the visual cortex: psychophysical evidence. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[38]  A. Watson,et al.  Transducer model produces facilitation from opposite-sign flanks , 1999, Vision Research.

[39]  Dennis M. Levi,et al.  Vernier acuity, crowding and amblyopia , 1985, Vision Research.

[40]  D. Levi,et al.  Integration of local pattern elements into a global shape in human vision. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[41]  D. Heeger,et al.  Center-surround interactions in foveal and peripheral vision , 2000, Vision Research.

[42]  M C FLOM,et al.  VISUAL RESOLUTION AND CONTOUR INTERACTION. , 1963, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[43]  Long range interactions in vision. , 1999, Spatial vision.

[44]  C. Gilbert.  Adult cortical dynamics. , 1998, Physiological reviews.

[45]  C. Tyler,et al.  Lateral sensitivity modulation explains the flanker effect in contrast discrimination , 2001, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[46]  U. Polat,et al.  Lateral interactions between spatial channels: Suppression and facilitation revealed by lateral masking experiments , 1993, Vision Research.

[47]  R F Hess,et al.  Relationship between facilitation at threshold and suprathreshold contour integration. , 1998, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[48]  S. Klein,et al.  Suppressive and facilitatory spatial interactions in peripheral vision: peripheral crowding is neither size invariant nor simple contrast masking. , 2002, Journal of vision.

[49]  I. Rentschler,et al.  Contrast thresholds for identification of numeric characters in direct and eccentric view , 1991, Perception & psychophysics.

[50]  S J Leat,et al.  Crowding in central and eccentric vision: the effects of contour interaction and attention. , 1999, Investigative ophthalmology & visual science.

[51]  R. Malach,et al.  Cortical hierarchy reflected in the organization of intrinsic connections in macaque monkey visual cortex , 1993, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[52]  G. Blasdel,et al.  Intrinsic connections of macaque striate cortex: axonal projections of cells outside lamina 4C , 1985, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[53]  J. Lund,et al.  Compulsory averaging of crowded orientation signals in human vision , 2001, Nature Neuroscience.

[54]  R. Jacobs.  Visual resolution and contour interaction in the fovea and periphery , 1979, Vision Research.

[55]  L N Thibos,et al.  Sampling limits and critical bandwidth for letter discrimination in peripheral vision. , 1999, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[56]  C. Gilbert,et al.  Improvement in visual sensitivity by changes in local context: Parallel studies in human observers and in V1 of alert monkeys , 1995, Neuron.

[57]  A. Arditi,et al.  Apparent string shortening concomitant with letter crowding , 2000, Vision Research.

[58]  D M Levi,et al.  Feature integration in pattern perception. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[59]  Dennis M. Levi,et al.  Surround modulation in human vision unmasked by masking experiments , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[60]  S P McKee,et al.  Interference with line-orientation sensitivity. , 1976, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[61]  G. Sperling,et al.  Object spatial frequencies, retinal spatial frequencies, noise, and the efficiency of letter discrimination , 1991, Vision Research.

[62]  U. Polat,et al.  What pattern the eye sees best , 1999, Vision Research.

[63]  Dennis M. Levi,et al.  Long-range dichoptic interactions in the human visual cortex in the region corresponding to the blind spot , 1994, Vision Research.

[64]  Dennis M Levi,et al.  Position jitter and undersampling in pattern perception , 1999, Vision Research.

[65]  J. B. Levitt,et al.  Comparison of intrinsic connectivity in different areas of macaque monkey cerebral cortex. , 1993, Cerebral cortex.

[66]  D. Levi,et al.  The two-dimensional shape of spatial interaction zones in the parafovea , 1992, Vision Research.

[67]  D G Pelli,et al.  Uncertainty explains many aspects of visual contrast detection and discrimination. , 1985, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[68]  Editorial: long range interactions in vision , 1999 .

[69]  J. M. Foley,et al.  Human luminance pattern-vision mechanisms: masking experiments require a new model. , 1994, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.