Biomedical subjects

Harriet A Allen

Publications and source records attributed to Harriet A Allen.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Integration, segregation, and binocular combination.

The human visual system can accurately judge the mean of a distribution of different orientation samples. We ask whether the site of this integration is before or after the sites of binocular combination and disparity processing. Furthermore, we are interested in whether the efficiency with which local orientation information is integrated depends on the eye of origin. Our results suggest that orientation integration occurs after binocular integration but before disparity coding. We show that the effectiveness of added orientation noise is not only less than expected on signal or noise grounds but also that it depends on the dominance of the eye to which it is presented, suggesting an interocular opponent interaction in which the dominant eye input has higher gain.

Dominance, Ocular↗

PubMed2004

Investigating local network interactions underlying first- and second-order processing.

We compared the spatial lateral interactions for first-order cues to those for second-order cues, and investigated spatial interactions between these two types of cues. We measured the apparent modulation depth of a target Gabor at fixation, in the presence and the absence of horizontally flanking Gabors. The Gabors' gratings were either added to (first-order) or multiplied with (second-order) binary 2-D noise. Apparent "contrast" or modulation depth (i.e., the perceived difference between the high and low luminance regions for the first-order stimulus, or between the high and low contrast regions for the second-order stimulus) was measured with a modulation depth-matching paradigm. For each observer, the first- and second-order Gabors were equated for apparent modulation depth without the flankers. Our results indicate that at the smallest inter-element spacing, the perceived reduction in modulation depth is significantly smaller for the second-order than for the first-order stimuli. Further, lateral interactions operate over shorter distances and the spatial frequency and orientation tuning of the suppression effect are broader for second- than first-order stimuli. Finally, first- and second-order information interact in an asymmetrical fashion; second-order flankers do not reduce the apparent modulation depth of the first-order target, whilst first-order flankers reduce the apparent modulation depth of the second-order target.

Contrast Sensitivity↗

PubMed2004

Poor encoding of position by contrast-defined motion.

Second-order (contrast-defined) motion stimuli lead to poor performance on a number of tasks, including discriminating form from motion and visual search. To investigate this deficiency, we tested the ability of human observers to monitor multiple regions for motion, to code the relative positions of shapes defined by motion, and to simultaneously encode motion direction and location. Performance with shapes from contrast-defined motion was compared with that obtained from luminance-defined (first-order) stimuli. When the position of coherent motion was uncertain, direction-discrimination thresholds were elevated similarly for both luminance-defined and contrast-defined motion, compared to when the stimulus location was known. The motion of both luminance- and contrast-defined structure can be monitored in multiple visual field locations. Only under conditions that greatly advantaged contrast-defined motion, were observers able to discriminate the positional offset of shapes defined by either type of motion. When shapes from contrast-defined and luminance-defined motion were presented under comparable conditions, the positional accuracy of contrast-defined motion was found to be poorer than its luminance-defined counterpart. These results may explain some, but possibly not all, of the deficits found previously with second-order motion.

Cognition↗

PubMed2004

Integration of orientation information in amblyopia.

A recent report suggests that amblyopes are deficient in processing local orientation at supra-threshold contrasts. To determine whether amblyopes are also poor at integrating local orientation signals, we assessed performance for an orientation integration task in which the orientations of static signals are integrated across space. Our results show that amblyopic visual systems can integrate local static oriented signals with the same level of efficiency as normal visual systems. Although internal noise was slightly elevated, there was no indication that fewer samples were used to achieve optimal performance. This finding suggests normal integration of local orientation signals in amblyopia.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Visual mechanisms of motion analysis and motion perception.

Psychophysical experiments on feature tracking suggest that most of our sensitivity to chromatic motion and to second-order motion depends on feature tracking. There is no reason to suppose that the visual system contains motion sensors dedicated to the analysis of second-order motion. Current psychophysical and physiological data indicate that local motion sensors are selective for orientation and spatial frequency but they do not eliminate any of the three main models-the Reichardt detector, the motion-energy filter, and gradient-based sensors. Both psychophysical and physiological data suggest that both broadly oriented and narrowly oriented motion sensors are important in the early analysis of motion in two dimensions.

Humans↗

PubMed2003

Attentional modulation of threshold sensitivity to first-order motion and second-order motion patterns.

Previous studies [e.g. Vision Research 40 (2000) 173] have shown that when observers are required to selectively attend to one of two, spatially-adjacent patches containing either first-order (luminance-defined) or second-order (contrast-defined) motion, threshold sensitivity for identifying the direction of second-order motion, but not first-order motion, is enhanced for the attended stimuli. The processing of second-order motion, unlike first-order motion, may, therefore, require attention. However, other studies have found little evidence for differential effects of attention on the processing of first-order and second-order motion [Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science 42(4) (2001) 5061]. We investigated the effects of attention instructions on the ability of observers to identify the directions and spatial orientations of luminance-defined and contrast-defined motion stimuli. Pairs of motion stimuli were presented simultaneously and threshold performance was measured over a wide range of drift temporal frequencies and stimulus durations. We found: (1) direction discrimination thresholds for attended motion stimuli were lower than those for unattended stimuli for both types of motion. The magnitude of this effect was reduced when the observers were not given prior knowledge of which patch of motion (attended or unattended) they had to judge first. (2) Direction discrimination for first-order motion was similarly affected at all temporal frequencies and durations examined, but for second-order motion the effects of attention depended critically on the drift temporal frequency and stimulus duration used. (3) Orientation discrimination showed little or no influence of attention instructions. Thus, whether or not attention influences the processing of second-order motion depends crucially on the precise stimulus parameters tested. Furthermore under appropriate conditions the processing of first-order motion is also influenced by attention, albeit to a lesser extent than second-order motion.

Attention↗

PubMed2003

Integration of first- and second-order orientation.

The problem of how visual information such as orientation is combined across space bears on key visual abiities, such as texture perception. Orientation signals can be derived from both luminance and contrast, but it is not well understood how such information is pooled or how these different orientation signals interact in the integration process. We measured orientation discrimination thresholds for arrays of equivisible first-order and second-order Gabors. Thresholds were measured as the orientation variability in the arrays increased, and we estimated the number of samples (or efficiency) and internal noise of the mechanism being used. Observers were able to judge the mean orientation of arrays of either first- or second-order Gabors. For arrays of first-order and arrays of second-order Gabors, estimates of the number of samples used increased as the number of Gabors increased. When judging the orientation of arrays of either order, observers were able to ignore randomly oriented Gabors of the opposite order. If observers did not know which Gabor type carried the more useful orientation information, they tended to use the information from first-order Gabors (even when this was poorer information). Observers were unable to combine information from first- and second-order Gabors, though this would have improved their performance. The visual system appears to have separate integrators for combining local orientation across space for luminance- and contrast-defined features.

Discrimination, Psychological↗