Effect of luminance on suprathreshold contrast perception
- 1 August 1991
- journal article
- Published by Optica Publishing Group in Journal of the Optical Society of America A
- Vol. 8 (8) , 1352-1359
- https://doi.org/10.1364/josaa.8.001352
Abstract
Perceived contrast was measured under natural viewing conditions with the use of contrast-matching and magnitude-estimation paradigms and found to be independent of luminance over a range of luminances from 37.5 down to 8 cd/m2. However, this contrast constancy broke down when the dimmer target was below 8 cd/m2. The perceived contrast of the dimmer target then fell below that expected from contrast constancy. The extended range of contrast constancy previously reported [ J. Physiol. 252, 627 ( 1975); Vision Res. 16, 1419 ( 1976)] has been thought to imply neural mechanisms with unlimited constancy, but these researchers permitted differential adaptation to the brighter and dimmer targets, which were seen haploscopically (by different eyes). As our natural-viewing procedure ensured that both bright and dim targets were presented to retinal areas in a roughly constant state of adaptation, our failure to find extended contrast constancy implies an important limitation on the neural processing of contrast.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Contrast in complex imagesJournal of the Optical Society of America A, 1990
- Perceived contrast in the fovea and peripheryJournal of the Optical Society of America A, 1985
- Microcomputer-based estimation of psychophysical thresholds: The Best PESTBehavior Research Methods, 1982
- A power law for perceived contrast in human visionVision Research, 1981
- Effective contrast constancy and linearity of contrast sensationVision Research, 1976
- Lightness and Retinex TheoryJournal of the Optical Society of America, 1971
- The effect of background luminance on the brightness of flashesVision Research, 1969
- Spatial Modulation Transfer in the Human EyeJournal of the Optical Society of America, 1967
- Simultaneous brightness induction as a function of inducing- and test-field luminances.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1955
- Foveal simultaneous brightness contrast as a function of inducing, and test-field luminances.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1953