Biomedical subjects

T Hine

Publications and source records attributed to T Hine.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

The influence of pattern interference on performance in migraine and visual discomfort groups.

Performance in migraine with and without visual aura, non-specific headache and headache-free control groups was measured using a visual search task. Data from groups with high and low visual discomfort were also gathered. No pattern, 2 c/deg, 15 c/deg and a grey field were used in different background conditions. Presentation of patterned backgrounds slowed performance for all groups with the 2 c/deg pattern producing greatest interference. Performance of headache groups did not differ from that of the control group in any condition. The high visual discomfort group responded significantly more slowly than other groups with the 2 c/deg background. It was concluded that the presence of visual discomfort, reported on an everyday basis was a better indicator of heightened sensory sensitivity than the occurrence of migraine with or without aura.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

The effects of visual discomfort and pattern structure on visual search.

Unpleasant somatic and perceptual side effects can be induced when viewing striped repetitive patterns, such as a square wave or a page of text. This sensitivity is greater in participants with higher scores on a scale of visual discomfort. In three experiments the effect that this sensitivity has on performance efficiency in a reading-like visual search task was investigated. In experiments 1 and 2, the 'global' structure of the patterns was manipulated to produce a square-wave, a checkerboard, and a plaid pattern. It was found that the group that suffered severe visual discomfort took significantly longer than other groups to perform the task, with interference greatest with presentation of the square-wave-like pattern. This supports the prediction of greatest distraction of visual attention from the local target elements with presentation of the pattern structure inducing greatest visual discomfort. In experiment 3, the internal pattern components were manipulated and task difficulty reduced. A no-interference and two interference patterns, one with a global characteristic only and the second made up of distracting line elements, containing global and local components were used. The global pattern structure produced interference effects on the visual-search task. All groups performed with the same speed and accuracy on the task involving the no-interference pattern, a finding attributed to reduced task difficulty. McConkie and Zola's model of visual attention was used to explain these results.

Asthenopia↗

PubMed1997

The Ouchi illusion: an anomaly in the perception of rigid motion for limited spatial frequencies and angles.

The spatial parameters underlying a novel illusion of relative motion are characterized. A simple stimulus composed of two sine-wave gratings was sufficient to generate the illusion. We measured the response of subjects to rapid, small-amplitude oscillations of this stimulus behind a fixation point. The effect was clearly strongest for acute angles between the gratings, but only when spatial frequency was between 6 and 11 cpd. We surmise that activity in the grating cells of the primate visual cortex (von der Heydt, Peterhans, & Dursteler, 1992) might be the cause of the illusion. The illusion is potentially an important tool in understanding how higher cortical areas combine disparate motion signals.

Humans↗

PubMed1993

Detection mechanisms in L-, M-, and S-cone contrast space.

Detection thresholds were obtained for a 2 degrees Gaussian-blurred spot flashed for 200 ms on an 8.9 degrees white adapting field of 1070 trolands. The spot's contrast was represented in an L-, M-, and S-cone contrast space. Detection thresholds were obtained for many vectors close to specific but theoretically important planes within this space. A three-dimensional surface was fitted to the data generated by the probability summation of three mechanisms, each a weighted sum of cone contrasts. The fit revealed a red-green chromatic mechanism driven by delta L/L--delta M/M with no S-cone input that was 1 order of magnitude more sensitive than the two other mechanisms. The latter consisted of a luminance mechanism with little S-cone input and a blue-yellow chromatic mechanism with the S cone opposed to L and M cones.

Color Perception↗

PubMed1992

Compensatory eye movements during near fixation after fast adaptation to lenses.

When the eyes are converged on a near target, the gain of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) during a subsequent head rotation is dependent upon both the amount of vergence and the degree to which it is asymmetrical. In conditions without visual feedback, we measured the gain of the VOR in the right eye of observers as they rotated their heads to the right or left while viewing a target placed 22, 32.5 or 200 cm from the centre of head rotation. We then adapted the VOR to the magnifying effects of +5 D lenses, and retested the VOR under the former convergence conditions. We found an inverse relationship such that the greater the VOR gain due to convergence, the less the effect of the rapid adaptation to lenses.

Adaptation, Ocular↗

PubMed1990

Texture segregation with luminance and chromatic contrast.

Preattentive texture discrimination was investigated using low spatial frequency texture elements. The contrast between the texture elements and the background was either purely luminance or purely chromatic, or some combination of both these types of contrast. The threshold to discriminate correctly the location of a different textured region was obtained from each subject, as was each subject's threshold to detect the elements of the texture. Using the ratio of texture to element detection as a measure of the effectiveness of texture discrimination, little difference could be found between the perception of luminance or chromatic texture. However, there were large and significant variations among subjects with otherwise normal colour vision.

Adaptation, Ocular↗

PubMed1987

Compensatory eye movements during active head rotation for near targets: effects of imagination, rapid head oscillation and vergence.

Because the center of natural head rotation lies some distance behind the centers of eye rotation, the VOR has to operate with a gain substantially above 1 for there to be stable fixation of targets lying near the head. In humans, VOR gain was increased inversely proportional to fixation distance and changed with the angle of the head for very near targets. These effects were also evident when the subject imagined the target. However, this "high-gain" VOR was found to deteriorate substantially at frequencies beyond ca 2.5 Hz. In conditions without visual feedback, the VOR gain enhancement due to near fixation was disrupted by monocular viewing. When the subjects wore lenses to relax or increase accommodation, the lenses were found to have no effect on VOR gain. On the other hand, prisms of equivalent power to the lenses had a large effect whereby gain was adjusted according to the vergence state of the eyes. This suggests that VOR gain modulation is under the direct control of convergence.

Accommodation, Ocular↗

PubMed1985

The binocular contribution to monocular optokinetic nystagmus and after nystagmus asymmetries in humans.

Stereoblind subjects show marked monocular asymmetries in both OKN and OKAN, while normal subjects produce more balanced nystagmus. There is a negative relationship between the magnitude of the asymmetries and the magnitude of a binocular contribution to OKN production as measured with dichoptic, strobe illumination. A second experiment with normal subjects corroborated this relationship, revealing a small, but significant asymmetry in these subjects' OKAN. Further, there was no correlation between the monocular nystagmus asymmetries and stereoacuity. The results are explained in terms of subcortical binocular mechanisms.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1982

The ability to see solid form in early infancy.

The perception of three-dimensional attributes of solid objects by twelve-week-old infants was studied. In the first experiment the rates of habituation of fixation to a cube in a fixed orientation, to one which changed in orientation between presentations, and to a sequence of photographs of cubes in different orientations were determined. Habituation rate was also determined for a photograph of a cube in a fixed orientation. No difference was found between the initial fixation times for solids and photographs, or between the habituation curves for the solids in fixed and varying orientation. For the photographs habituation was much greater for the fixed orientation than the varying orientation condition. These data were interpreted as providing strong evidence that the infants were responding to the stimuli on the basis of their three-dimensional attributes. In the second experiment the same discriminations were examined by a recovery-from-habituation technique. One group was habituated to a cube in a fixed orientation and tested for recovery of fixation to a new orientation. A second group was habituated to a photograph of a cube in a single orientation and tested for recovery to a photograph of a new orientation. Both groups showed recovery and the recovery was the same for both conditions. These data demonstrated that the subjects were, after all, capable of discriminating between different orientations of a solid cube, and they provided no further evidence that the infants were perceiving three-dimensional attributes of the stimuli.

Depth Perception↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Effects of asymmetric vergence on compensatory eye movements during active head rotation.

The kinematics of the horizontal VOR for near fixation demand that VOR gain should change dependent on the target distance and the orientation of the head with respect to the target, or, equivalently, the amount of ocular vergence and the asymmetry of this vergence. Across two experiments, the gain of the VOR was measured in the right eye of humans who rotated their heads to the right or left while viewing a target placed either 22, 32.5 or 200 cm from the center of head rotation, in conditions with and without visual feedback. When the eye was in-line with the target, the measured VOR gain was up to 43% greater than when the eye was in an eccentric position. However, in the eccentric position, higher VOR gains were achieved with visual feedback of the target than without feedback, indicative of a visual component in the compensatory eye movement. Also, by changing the posture of the left eye but keeping the right eye constant, the VOR gain in the right eye was changed substantially during a subsequent head rotation. Hence, the positions of both eyes in their orbits determine the gain of the VOR in each eye.

Adaptation, Ocular↗