Differences between flicker and non-flicker persistence tasks: The effects of luminance and the number of cycles in a grating target

Abstract Two experiments are reported which examine the recent claim that visual persistence increases with increasing spatial frequency of a target grating. The first experiment demonstrates that estimates of visual persistence obtained on the quasi-flicker task of Meyer and Maguire (1977) increase with increasing spatial frequency but decrease as target luminance is increased. Furthermore, this spatial frequency effect is shown to be due to the changing number of visible cycles in the target as spatial frequency is varied. The second experiment examines persistence estimates for the same type of stimuli on another form of persistence task in which the target is presented in a single brief flash. Consistent with a retinal interpretation for the locus of the visual persistence, the estimates of persistence are positively related to target luminance but inversely related to spatial frequency.

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